Cage Match: CFBundleShortVersionString vs CFBundleString

Content Authoring
1

Typically when I create relevance for macOS app bundles, I’m looking at the Info.plist for the version I want to pull back.

Safari.app provides the two key/value pairs:

<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>10.0.1</string>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>12602.2.14.0.7</string>

When I find that version is in the CFBundleShortVersionString, for example, I use:

version of folder "/Applications/Safari.app"

Which returns 10.0.1.

Running the bundle version:

bundle version of folder "/Applications/Safari.app"

Returns 12602.2.14.0.7.

So far this makes sense. However, when I introduce a new .app bundle, like TeamViewer.app for example, the relevance fails…

The TeamViewer.app Info.plist contains:

<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>11.0.66595</string>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>1</string>

When I check the version of it:

version of folder "/Applications/TeamViewer.app"

I get 1.0

When I try to get the bundle version:

bundle version of folder "/Applications/TeamViewer.app"

I get 1.0

If I manually edit the value in CFBundleVersion it will return my edited version for both version and bundle version.

My question is why? Why does Safari.app return the expected values, but TeamViewer (and quite a few other apps) don’t? I’m interested in the best path going forward. I don’t want to create a lot of content with the impression it’s going to work.

P.S. I can work around it using :

not exists file "/Applications/TeamViewer.app/Contents/Info.plist" whose (string "CFBundleShortVersionString" of dictionary of it >= "11.0.66595")
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2

That is odd and annoying, but not sure why.

CC: @AlanM

1 Like
3

This should be equivalent relevance to your workaround, but slightly better:

not exists strings "CFBundleShortVersionString" whose(it >= "11.0.66595") of dictionaries of files "/Applications/TeamViewer.app/Contents/Info.plist"

I prefer plurals, simpler whose statements, and keeping a right to left reading of relevance as much as possible.

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