How do I determine the OS version at runtime in OS X or iOS (without using Gestalt)?

Question

The Gestalt() function located in CarbonCore/OSUtils.h has been deprecated as of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

I often use this function to test the version of the OS X operating system at runtime (see the toy example below).

What other API could be used to check the OS X operating system version at runtime in a Cocoa application?

int main() {     SInt32 versMaj, versMin, versBugFix;     Gestalt(gestaltSystemVersionMajor, &versMaj);     Gestalt(gestaltSystemVersionMinor, &versMin);     Gestalt(gestaltSystemVersionBugFix, &versBugFix);      printf("OS X Version: %d.%d.%d\n", versMaj, versMin, versBugFix); } 

Answer 1

On OS X 10.10 (and iOS 8.0), you can use [[NSProcessInfo processInfo] operatingSystemVersion] which returns a NSOperatingSystemVersion struct, defined as

typedef struct {     NSInteger majorVersion;     NSInteger minorVersion;     NSInteger patchVersion; } NSOperatingSystemVersion; 

There is also a method in NSProcessInfo that will do the comparison for you:

- (BOOL)isOperatingSystemAtLeastVersion:(NSOperatingSystemVersion)version 

Beware, although documented to be available in OS X 10.10 and later, both operatingSystemVersion and isOperatingSystemAtLeastVersion: exist on OS X 10.9 (probably 10.9.2) and work as expected. It means that you must not test if NSProcessInfo responds to these selectors to check if you are running on OS X 10.9 or 10.10.

On iOS, these methods are effectively only available since iOS 8.0.

Answer 2

On the command line:

$ sysctl kern.osrelease kern.osrelease: 12.0.0 $ sysctl kern.osversion kern.osversion: 12A269 

Programmatically:

#include <errno.h> #include <sys/sysctl.h>  char str[256]; size_t size = sizeof(str); int ret = sysctlbyname("kern.osrelease", str, &size, NULL, 0); 

Darwin version to OS X release:

17.x.x. macOS 10.13.x High Sierra 16.x.x  macOS 10.12.x Sierra 15.x.x  OS X  10.11.x El Capitan 14.x.x  OS X  10.10.x Yosemite 13.x.x  OS X  10.9.x  Mavericks 12.x.x  OS X  10.8.x  Mountain Lion 11.x.x  OS X  10.7.x  Lion 10.x.x  OS X  10.6.x  Snow Leopard  9.x.x  OS X  10.5.x  Leopard  8.x.x  OS X  10.4.x  Tiger  7.x.x  OS X  10.3.x  Panther  6.x.x  OS X  10.2.x  Jaguar  5.x    OS X  10.1.x  Puma 

A Sample to get and test versions :

#include <string.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <sys/sysctl.h>  /* kernel version as major minor component*/ struct kern {     short int version[3]; };  /* return the kernel version */ void GetKernelVersion(struct kern *k) {    static short int version_[3] = {0};    if (!version_[0]) {       // just in case it fails someday       version_[0] = version_[1] = version_[2] = -1;       char str[256] = {0};       size_t size = sizeof(str);       int ret = sysctlbyname("kern.osrelease", str, &size, NULL, 0);       if (ret == 0) sscanf(str, "%hd.%hd.%hd", &version_[0], &version_[1], &version_[2]);     }     memcpy(k->version, version_, sizeof(version_)); }  /* compare os version with a specific one 0 is equal negative value if the installed version is less positive value if the installed version is more */ int CompareKernelVersion(short int major, short int minor, short int component) {     struct kern k;     GetKernelVersion(&k);     if ( k.version[0] !=  major) return major - k.version[0];     if ( k.version[1] !=  minor) return minor - k.version[1];     if ( k.version[2] !=  component) return component - k.version[2];     return 0; }  int main() {    struct kern kern;    GetKernelVersion(&kern);    printf("%hd %hd %hd\n", kern.version[0], kern.version[1], kern.version[2]);     printf("up: %d %d eq %d %d low %d %d\n",         CompareKernelVersion(17, 0, 0), CompareKernelVersion(16, 3, 0),         CompareKernelVersion(17, 3, 0), CompareKernelVersion(17,3,0),         CompareKernelVersion(17,5,0), CompareKernelVersion(18,3,0));   } 

Result on my machine macOs High Sierra 10.13.2

17 3 0 up: -3 -1 eq 0 0 low 2 1