I have a shell script that is used both on Windows/Cygwin and Mac and Linux. It needs slightly different variables for each versions.
How can a shell/bash script detect whether it is running in Cygwin, on a Mac or in Linux?
+3
A:
Usually, uname with its various options will tell you what environment you're running in:
pax> uname -a
CYGWIN_NT-5.1 IBM-L3F3936 1.5.25(0.156/4/2) 2008-06-12 19:34 i686 Cygwin
pax> uname -s
CYGWIN_NT-5.1
pax> uname -o
Cygwin
Unfortunately, I don't have a Linux or Mac handy so someone else will have to add those.
According to the very helpful schot, uname -s gives Darwin for OSX and Linux for Linux and my Cygwin gives CYGWIN_NT-5.1. But you'll probably have to experiment with all sorts of different versions.
paxdiablo
2010-08-12 09:12:14
The `-o` option is nonstandard, did you mean `-s`? Results for OSX: "Darwin", Linux: "Linux" (for `-s`) and "GNU/Linux" (for `-o`).
schot
2010-08-12 09:16:21
`-o` works under Cygwin. You must be using one of those "lesser" BSD variants :-) I've added `-s` output for Cygwin and I'll update it with your info. Thanks.
paxdiablo
2010-08-12 09:19:47
Sometimes less is more ;) BTW, Wikipedia has a table of example uname output at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uname
schot
2010-08-12 09:24:12
A:
If uname, as suggested by paxdiablo, gives not enough information, you can check for existence of some specific files, e.g.,/Applications/iPhoto.app/ directory on Mac OS X.
mouviciel
2010-08-12 09:20:40
And Cygwin tends to have a `/cygdrive` directory for accessing `c:` and others.
paxdiablo
2010-08-12 09:22:26
+1
A:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uname
All the info you'll ever need. Google is your friend.
rubenvb
2010-08-12 09:22:19