Remember too that you can pass categories to system_profiler to control what info it returns.

It also can give you your output in XML format.

Josh

-- 
Josh Wisenbaker
Consulting Engineer - Apple U.S. Commercial and Governmental Sales

On Jul 14, 2013, at 9:08 PM, Peter Link <plink53@mac.com> wrote:

update:

The system report is the results of running 

>system_profiler

This simple command contains the current status of just about everything system related. The application's reporter files (.spreporter) are found in /System/Library/SystemProfiler. There is a SPApplicationsReporter.spreporter file but the basic operation of running the command system_profiler doesn't appear to run this file while using the GUI does. I'm still looking for more information.

Many of you might want more information on certain files but I suggest looking at the System Profiler to see how much can be found using existing, simple applications. 

As for browser plugins, they are normally found in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins making it a simple task to find them.

Excuse me if I'm trying to use the simple way to find things on OSX. 


On Jul 14, 2013, at 4:58 PM, Peter Link <plink53@mac.com> wrote:

OSX provides a very simple method of displaying all applications using About this Mac/More Info as the front end to a System Report. Just need to figure out how the application finds everything. This also finds all devices including printers.