compiling application 'Kind' data

You can use this as an AppleScript.

set the searchResult to do shell script "system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType"

set thesePaths to {}
repeat with i from 1 to the count of paragraphs of the searchResult if paragraph i of the searchResult contains "PowerPC" then repeat with x from 1 to 5 if (paragraph (i + x) of the searchResult) contains "Location:" then set the end of thesePaths to (text 17 thru -1 of (paragraph (i + x) of the searchResult)) end if end repeat end if
end repeat

if thesePaths is not {} then set theseApplicationFiles to {} repeat with i from 1 to the count of thesePaths set the end of theseApplicationFiles to (item i of thesePaths) as POSIX file as alias end repeat
else return "NO MATCHES"
end if

tell application "Finder" set the folderOfAliases to make new folder at desktop repeat with i from 1 to the count of theseApplicationFiles make alias file to (item i of theseApplicationFiles) at folderOfAliases end repeat activate open folderOfAliases display dialog "Do you want to delete the original PowerPC apps?" buttons {"Cancel", "Delete All"} default button 1 delete theseApplicationFiles delete folderOfAliases
end tell

I did not write this applescript. I found it somewhere so if anyone knows where it came from please provide the source. What it does is searches your computer and creates a new folder on your desktop that contains shortcuts to all of your PPC apps and then gives you the choice to delete them if you wish. If you don't want to delete them then you have a folder with all of your PPC apps listed.

I might be able to do something with that. I'm hoping for more of a reporting engine though than something to take action on files. I just want to know the info, not do anything to the computer...

The system_profiler command should give you what you need:

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType

It will return "Kind" for each application:
- Kind: PowerPC
- Kind: Universal
- Kind: Intel

Add a little grep to the mix and you can get a list of PowerPC only applications and their paths:

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | grep -A 3 PowerPC | grep Location

This could probably be cleaner but it gets the job done.

@talkingmoose My test is usually readability first and efficiency second (EDIT: just tested and you win there too).

The big problem typically with people that use multiple |, greps, awks, and seds is that they are just not using all the features and it ends up being incredibly incomprehensible.

I actually had to ask around for how to accomplish this in awk because I came close but couldn't pull it off on my own.

This is actually a lot harder to read but accomplishes the task at hand.

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | awk '/^[[:space:]]*$/{n=0}/PowerPC/{n++}/Location/&&n'

1. if line is empty or only spaces, set n to zero
2. if line contains 'PowerPC', set n to one
3. if line contains Location AND n is one (that is, 'PowerPC was seen in current paragraph'), then print
4. (the print command is implicit)

The only problem I could see with yours is if the Location line was more lines away...I don't have anything with PowerPC apps to test but Universal -> Location on my iMac varies from 3-6 lines away :(.

tl;dr I like yours better :)

Hi Ryan!

I'll make no excuses regarding my coding other than it was down and dirty. Your string and mine returned the same results on my machines but that's not to say they normally would.

Thanks for finding a cleaner way of doing it. :-D

Same results from both here as well - thanks for the chance to learn some more awk-fu.

I found the following script:

#!/bin/sh # Author: Robert Harder, http://blog.iharder.net # Variable and temp file setup OUTPUT=~/Desktop/ppc-only-quick-and-dirty.txt H=$(tput setab 4; tput setaf 3; tput bold) R=$(tput sgr0) # Execute search echo "This will just take a moment..." /bin/echo -n "Looking for ${H} PowerPC ${R} applications..." system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType 2> /dev/null | awk 'BEGIN { RS="" } /PowerPC/ {print PrevLine} {PrevLine=$0}' > "$OUTPUT" open -a "TextEdit" "$OUTPUT"

It's not what John was looking for, since his goal is to have Casper pull that information from the client, but the script above will give you a quick overview in a txt file.

Word of warning, this will give false positives

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | awk '/^[[:space:]]*$/{n=0}/PowerPC/{n++}/Location/&&n'

Any application with PowerPC in it's title will show up as Kind PowerPC even though it may not be. I have one on my machine!!!

PowerPC Help:

Version: 4.7.3 Last Modified: 04/08/2011 22:56 Kind: Intel 64-Bit (Intel): No Location: /Library/Application Support/Shark/Helpers/PowerPC Help.app

Change "PowerPC" to "^ {6}Kind: PowerPC" will reduce the risk of false positives and you could also tidy up the output

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType | awk -F ":" '/^[[:space:]]*$/{n=0}/^ {6}Kind: PowerPC/{n++}/Location/&&n{$1="";sub(/^[ 	]+/, ""); print}'

^/ {6} means starts with 6 spaces

-F is a field separator, in this case use : as a separator

$1 is made to equal nothing (hence everything before the field separator is blanked and so only everything after the field separator is printed).

sub is a substitution, so remove all leading whitespace in this example.

Of course!

I didn't think of PowerPC being in an app title. :(

Nice catch.