Question

I am trying to write some c# code to start a browser using Process.Start(app,args); where apps is the path to the browser e.g. /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome and the args are --no-default-browser-check

If i do, which works on Windows and on Linux

Process.Start("/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome","--no-first-run");

I get

open: unrecognized option `--no-first-run'
Usage: open [-e] [-t] [-f] [-W] [-n] [-g] [-h] [-b <bundle identifier>] [-a <application>] [filenames]
Help: Open opens files from a shell.
      By default, opens each file using the default application for that file.  
      If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a URL.
Options: 
      -a                Opens with the specified application.
      -b                Opens with the specified application bundle identifier.
      -e                Opens with TextEdit.
      -t                Opens with default text editor.
      -f                Reads input from standard input and opens with TextEdit.
      -W, --wait-apps   Blocks until the used applications are closed (even if they were already running).
      -n, --new         Open a new instance of the application even if one is already running.
      -g, --background  Does not bring the application to the foreground.
      -h, --header      Searches header file locations for headers matching the given filenames, and opens them.

I have also tried Monobjc to try run the code with

// spin up the objective-c runtime
ObjectiveCRuntime.LoadFramework("Cocoa");
ObjectiveCRuntime.Initialize();
NSAutoreleasePool pool = new NSAutoreleasePool();

// Create our process
NSTask task = new NSTask();
NSPipe standardOut = new NSPipe();
task.StandardOutput = standardOut;
task.LaunchPath = @"/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome";

// add some arguments
NSString argumentString = new NSString("--no-first-run");
NSArray arguments = NSArray.ArrayWithObject(argumentString);
task.Arguments = arguments;

// We should have liftoff
task.Launch();


// Parse the output and display it to the console
NSData output = standardOut.FileHandleForReading.ReadDataToEndOfFile;
NSString outString = new NSString(output,NSStringEncoding.NSUTF8StringEncoding);
Console.WriteLine(outString);

// Dipose our objects, gotta love reference counting
pool.Release();

But when I run my code using NUnit it causes NUnit to blow up.

I suspect that this is a bug but can’t prove it. I appreciate any and all help!

Answer 1

To make Process.Start use exec directly instead of using the OS’ mechanism for opening files, you must set UseShellExecute to false. This is also true on Linux and Windows.

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo (
    "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome",
    "--no-first-run")
    { UseShellExecute = false });

Note that you can also use ‘open’ for your use case, to run the Chrome app bundle properly. Use the ‘-a’ argument to force it to run a specific app, the ‘-n’ argument to open a new instance, and ‘–args’ to pass in arguments:

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo (
    "open",
    "-a '/Applications/Google Chrome.app' -n --args --no-first-run")
    { UseShellExecute = false });