pkgbuild many MAS apps with bash

I wanted to quickly create pkgs for iWork and iLife from apps with an institutional ID receipt because I am experimenting with AutoDMG and Lightning.

It takes a bit of time for some of these to build and I didn't want to wait around so here is what I did…

Start an array by just typing array=( into the command line and then hitting <return>

admin_dist@golden ~ $ array=( 

Drag and drop the apps into the Terminal window hitting <return> after each

> /Applications/GarageBand.app 

> /Applications/iMovie.app 

> /Applications/iPhoto.app 

> /Applications/Keynote.app 

> /Applications/Numbers.app 

> /Applications/Pages.app

When they are all in finish off the array

> ) 

Now for the good stuff.  :D

For each path in the array

admin_dist@golden ~ $ for path in "${array[@]}"; do

 greedily chomp from the front to the last / using parameter expansion

> app_name="${path##*/}"

chomp from the end to the first period

> name="${app_name%.*}"

get the version of the thing at $path using command substitution and an assignment

> version=$(defaults read "${path}"/Contents/Info CFBundleShortVersionString)

build it with a pretty name

> pkgbuild --component "${path}" $HOME/Desktop/"${name}-${version}".pkg
> done

This will give you nice installer packages on the Desktop of the form "GarageBand-10.0.2.pkg".

Here is gist with a full script instead of interactive command line entries.