Command-line arguments in Mac App

Miro Jurisic wrote:

> There is nothing that prevents you from putting code inside the app that reads
> arguments from Info.plist into an array and then calls the equivalent of main()
> with those arguments. There is no standard way for it, though.

> meeroh


Yeah, but I was hoping to keep the code as genericly Unix as possible.

dave

This message is not archived

Dave Chen <dchen RemoveThis @mail.nih.gov> wrote in message news:<DpM0c.124$Pp2.352@mencken.net.nih.gov>...
> I'm porting a Unix program to Mac OS X. I've made a bundle for the app,
> and I'd like to be able to have the executable run with some command
> line arguments. I was hoping there was a way to specify the arguments
> in the Info.plist or something like that. But I couldn't find any such
> mechanism.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas?

Why don't you make the main excutable a shell script that will in turn
execute your program with the correct arguments?

Michael

On 01/03/2004, Dave Chen wrote in message
<4VM0c.125$Pp2.413@mencken.net.nih.gov>:

> Yeah, but I was hoping to keep the code as genericly Unix as possible.

You can, by all means, use argv and argc. They work fine. But
since most OS X users will be launching your application using the
GUI, there will be no arguments.

You seem to be using the command line for something it was never
intended for. Generic /Windows/ program use PIFs to feed stuff in
via the command line. Generic Unix programs use the command line
only to notice stuff fed in my the user or by a shell script.

Simon.
--
Using pre-release version of newsreader.
Please tell me if it does weird things.

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, David Phillip Oster wrote:

> > Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
> > command-line arguments into applications it launches.
>
> News to me. I've been writing Mac software since 1984, and every app was
> the equivalent of (some were in Pascal, Forth, and Assembler):
>
> void main(void){
> }
>
> The Finder sends appleEvents, and has since System 7. For examples,
> just look at the results from this Google search:
>
> <http://www.google.com/search?as_q=+main+void&as_sitesearch=apple.com>
>
> Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that the
> Finder sends info as command-line arguments?

I wrote a quick test program. I created a new Cocoa app, then changed its
main() to this:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i;
for(i = 0; i < argc; i++)
NSLog(@"Arg %d = %s\n", i, argv[i]);
return NSApplicationMain(argc, argv);
}

Upon running from the Finder, I get the following in the Console:

2004-03-05 11:57:02.594 ArgsTest[582] Arg 0 =
/Users/mikeash/Development-Build-Products/ArgsTest.app/Contents/MacOS/ArgsTest
2004-03-05 11:57:02.595 ArgsTest[582] Arg 1 = -psn_0_2228225

The Finder doesn't pass files to open as command-line arguments, but in OS
X, the PSN information is passed as command-line arguments. OS X is a very
different beast from previous Mac OSes.

In article <c25tit$qcc$1$830fa79d@news.demon.co.uk>,
Simon Slavin <slavins.delete.these.four.words.DeleteThis@hearsay.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

> On 01/03/2004, Dave Chen wrote in message
> <4VM0c.125$Pp2.413@mencken.net.nih.gov>:
>
> > Yeah, but I was hoping to keep the code as genericly Unix as possible.
>
> You can, by all means, use argv and argc. They work fine. But
> since most OS X users will be launching your application using the
> GUI, there will be no arguments.

Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
command-line arguments into applications it launches.

Cheers,
-- Uli
http://www.zathras.de

In article <witness-178C0F.08411505032004.DeleteThis@news.t-online.com>,
Uli Kusterer <witness.DeleteThis@t-online.de> wrote:

> In article <c25tit$qcc$1$830fa79d@news.demon.co.uk>,
> Simon Slavin <slavins.delete.these.four.words.DeleteThis@hearsay.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > On 01/03/2004, Dave Chen wrote in message
> > <4VM0c.125$Pp2.413@mencken.net.nih.gov>:
> >
> > > Yeah, but I was hoping to keep the code as genericly Unix as possible.
> >
> > You can, by all means, use argv and argc. They work fine. But
> > since most OS X users will be launching your application using the
> > GUI, there will be no arguments.
>
> Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
> command-line arguments into applications it launches.

News to me. I've been writing Mac software since 1984, and every app was
the equivalent of (some were in Pascal, Forth, and Assembler):

void main(void){
}

The Finder sends appleEvents, and has since System 7. For examples,
just look at the results from this Google search:

<http://www.google.com/search?as_q=+main+void&as_sitesearch=apple.com>

Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that the
Finder sends info as command-line arguments?

David Phillip Oster wrote:
> Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that
> the Finder sends info as command-line arguments?

it sends the process serial number as an argument when it starts a gui
cocoa app. i can say that for certain, because i was recently adding a
few debugging command-line options to one of my apps, and was very
surprised to see an argument on the command line that i definitely did
not put there myself.

it would take me awhile to derive a minimal gui app i could paste in
here to "prove" it. put a couple of printf()s in one of your gui app's
main() function and see for yourself.

In article <20040305055619.F75251.RemoveThis@agamemnon.twistedsys.net>,
Michael Ash <mikeash.RemoveThis@mikeash.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, David Phillip Oster wrote:
>
> > > Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
> > > command-line arguments into applications it launches.
> >
> > News to me. I've been writing Mac software since 1984, and every app was
> > the equivalent of (some were in Pascal, Forth, and Assembler):
> >
> > void main(void){
> > }
> >
> > The Finder sends appleEvents, and has since System 7. For examples,
> > just look at the results from this Google search:
> >
> > <http://www.google.com/search?as_q=+main+void&as_sitesearch=apple.com>
> >
> > Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that the
> > Finder sends info as command-line arguments?
>
> I wrote a quick test program. I created a new Cocoa app, then changed its
> main() to this:
>
> int main(int argc, char *argv[])
> {
> int i;
> for(i = 0; i < argc; i++)
> NSLog(@"Arg %d = %s\n", i, argv[i]);
> return NSApplicationMain(argc, argv);
> }
>
> Upon running from the Finder, I get the following in the Console:
>
> 2004-03-05 11:57:02.594 ArgsTest[582] Arg 0 =
> /Users/mikeash/Development-Build-Products/ArgsTest.app/Contents/MacOS/ArgsTest
> 2004-03-05 11:57:02.595 ArgsTest[582] Arg 1 = -psn_0_2228225
>
> The Finder doesn't pass files to open as command-line arguments, but in OS
> X, the PSN information is passed as command-line arguments. OS X is a very
> different beast from previous Mac OSes.
>

You are right. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing that when I
open a Terminal window and do a:

ps xl

In article <oster-CE732F.23591004032004.RemoveThis@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>,
David Phillip Oster <oster.RemoveThis@ieee.org> wrote:

> > Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
> > command-line arguments into applications it launches.
>
> News to me. I've been writing Mac software since 1984, and every app was
> the equivalent of (some were in Pascal, Forth, and Assembler):
>
> void main(void){
> }

That is how it was in Classic MacOS, yes.

> The Finder sends appleEvents, and has since System 7. For examples,
> just look at the results from this Google search:

Yes, the Finder sends Apple Events for opening files etc. (and it
actually faked menu choices before that -- remember 'mstr' or whatever
the resource for the menu item names was?)

> Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that the
> Finder sends info as command-line arguments?

It came up on Carbon-Dev a while ago. Can't find it right now, though.
Apparently when a bundled application is launched through the Finder, it
gets a command-line parameter, which is some sort of process ID or
window server connection ID or something of that sort. Caused a few
command-line applications that had simply been wrapped in a bundle to
abort because of the unexpected parameter.

Might be that it's restricted to a particular object file format,
though. Either it only happens with CFM apps, or (more likely) it only
happens with MachO apps.

Cheers,
-- Uli
http://www.zathras.de

In article <witness-1C192F.06224306032004 RemoveThis @news.t-online.com>,
Uli Kusterer <witness RemoveThis @t-online.de> wrote:

> In article <oster-CE732F.23591004032004 RemoveThis @news.sf.sbcglobal.net>,
> David Phillip Oster <oster RemoveThis @ieee.org> wrote:
>
> > > Actually, there *will* be arguments. The Finder sends some info as
> > > command-line arguments into applications it launches.
> >
> > News to me. I've been writing Mac software since 1984, and every app was
> > the equivalent of (some were in Pascal, Forth, and Assembler):
> >
> > void main(void){
> > }
>
> That is how it was in Classic MacOS, yes.
>
> > The Finder sends appleEvents, and has since System 7. For examples,
> > just look at the results from this Google search:
>
> Yes, the Finder sends Apple Events for opening files etc. (and it
> actually faked menu choices before that -- remember 'mstr' or whatever
> the resource for the menu item names was?)
>
> > Can you give references and examples to back up your assertion that the
> > Finder sends info as command-line arguments?
>
> It came up on Carbon-Dev a while ago. Can't find it right now, though.
> Apparently when a bundled application is launched through the Finder, it
> gets a command-line parameter, which is some sort of process ID or
> window server connection ID or something of that sort. Caused a few
> command-line applications that had simply been wrapped in a bundle to
> abort because of the unexpected parameter.
>
> Might be that it's restricted to a particular object file format,
> though. Either it only happens with CFM apps, or (more likely) it only
> happens with MachO apps.

If you run 'ps -auxwww' you'll see that both Mach-O and CFM applications
have a -psn_<something> argument. I'm not sure what it's for, but all
apps ignore it.

-Eric

--
Eric Albert ejalbert RemoveThis @cs.stanford.edu
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~ejalbert/