NSProcessInfo

Inherits From:
NSObject

Conforms To:
NSObject (NSObject)

Declared In:
Foundation/NSProcessinfo.h

Class Description

The NSProcessInfo class provides methods to access process-wide information. An NSProcessInfo object can return such information as the arguments, environment variables, host name, or process name. The processInfo class method returns a shared NSProcessInfo object for the process. For example, the following line returns the NSProcessInfo object, which then provides the name of the current process:

NSString *processName = [[NSProcessInfo processInfo] processName];

NSProcessInfo also includes the operatingSystem method, which returns an enum constant identifying the operating system on which the process is executing.

Method Types

Getting an NSProcessInfo object

+ processInfo

Returning process information

- arguments
- environment
- hostName
- processName
- globallyUniqueString

Returning the host operating system

- operatingSystem
- operatingSystemName

Specifying a process name

- setProcessName:

Class Methods

processInfo

+ (NSProcessInfo *)processInfo

Returns an initialized NSProcessInfo object for the process. An NSProcessInfo object is created the first time this method is invoked, and that same object is returned on each subsequent invocation.

Instance Methods

arguments

- (NSArray *)arguments

Returns the command line arguments as an array of NSStrings.

environment

- (NSDictionary *)environment

Returns a dictionary of variables for the environment from which the process was launched. The dictionary keys are the environment variable names.

globallyUniqueString

- (NSString *)globallyUniqueString

Returns a globally unique string to identify the process. This method uses the host name, process ID, and a time stamp to ensure that the string returned will be unique for the network. This method generates a new string each time it is invoked, so it also uses a counter to guarantee that strings created from the same process will be unique.

See also: - processName

hostName

- (NSString *)hostName

Returns the name of the host system.

operatingSystem

- (unsigned int)operatingSystem

Returns one the contants below to indicate the operating system on which the process is executing:

NSWindowsNTOperatingSystem
NSWindows95OperatingSystem
NSSolarisOperatingSystem
NSHPUXOperatingSystem
NSMACHOperatingSystem
NSSunOSOperatingSystem
NSOSF1OperatingSystem

operatingSystemName

- (NSString *)operatingSystemName

<< Description forthcoming. >>

processName

- (NSString *)processName

Returns the name of the process. This name is used to register Application defaults and is used in error messages. It does not uniquely identify the process.

See also: - setProcessName:

setProcessName:

- (void)setProcessName:(NSString *)newName

Sets the name of the process to newName.

Warning: User defaults and other aspects of the environment might depend on the process name, so be very careful if you change it. Setting the process name in this manner is not thread-safe.

See also: - processName