Question

I am on OS X using bash and wanting to read the data in a key embedded in every Application in the Applications directory. The result seems to be the ‘defaults’ command trying to apply itself to the whole list instead of each returned Application.

#!/bin/bash

# appList=$(ls /Applications)

for APPS in "$( ls /Applications )" ; do
        result=$(defaults read /Applications/"$APPS"/Contents/Info DTPlatformBuild)
done

echo result is $result

exit 0

Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

I am going to go with the below. The text file “appleApps.txt” is simply a listing of the default Apple Applications on a new build to abstain from the search.
A valid company application will have a new key inserted into the “Info.plist” file with a boolean set to true.
Thus we now have a mechanism to report on whether user’s are installing their own copies of Applications we already package ourselves.

#!/bin/bash
echo " "
echo " "
rm -f /tmp/validApps /tmp/notValid
find /Applications -name "*.app" | grep -v -F -f /Library/Application\ Support/CompanyData/appleApps.txt | while read APP
do
appVersion=`defaults read "$APP/Contents/Info" Company 2>/dev/null`
if test "$appVersion" = 1 ; then
    echo "$APP : $appVersion" >> /tmp/validApps
else
    echo "$APP" >> /tmp/notValid
fi
done

echo " "
echo " "

result=$(cat -n /tmp/validApps)
notValidResult=$(cat -n /tmp/notValid)

printf "%s\n" "Our packaged Applications are:" "$result"
echo " "
echo " "
printf "%s\n" "User installed Applications are:" "$notValidResult"
echo " "

rm -f /tmp/validApps /tmp/notValid

exit 0

Thanks for the tips as far as my errors with $result

I read up on why not to us ls and have learnt not to do it, as prompted by both @chris and @anubhava