Check if a Mac OS X application is present

Question

I recall there being a Cocoa framework or AppleScript dictionary to check if an Application bundle with a specific name is installed at all, anywhere on the computer.

How do I do this? Either Cocoa, AppleScript, or command line are useful to me.

Answer 1

You should use Launch Services to do this, specifically the function LSFindApplicationForInfo().

You use it like so:

#import <ApplicationServices/ApplicationServices.h>

CFURLRef appURL = NULL;
OSStatus result = LSFindApplicationForInfo (
                                   kLSUnknownCreator,         //creator codes are dead, so we don't care about it
                                   CFSTR("com.apple.Safari"), //you can use the bundle ID here
                                   NULL,                      //or the name of the app here (CFSTR("Safari.app"))
                                   NULL,                      //this is used if you want an FSRef rather than a CFURLRef
                                   &appURL
                                   );
switch(result)
{
    case noErr:
        NSLog(@"the app's URL is: %@",appURL);
        break;
    case kLSApplicationNotFoundErr:
        NSLog(@"app not found");
        break;
    default:
        NSLog(@"an error occurred: %d",result);
        break;          
}

//the CFURLRef returned from the function is retained as per the docs so we must release it
if(appURL)
    CFRelease(appURL);