Terminal command for determining specs

Question

I realise that you can easily determine a macs specs by examining the 'About this Mac' function on the desktop. But I would like to do it through the terminal if it's possible to. So how do you go about doing it? If there are any comprehensive resources you can recommend point me to em!

Cheers

Answer 1

You're looking for is the system_profiler command.

Create plist containing system information for all SPDataTypes:

system_profiler -xml 

Create plist containing information for specific SPDataType:

system_profiler -xml SPHardwareRAIDDataType 

List of SPDataTypes:

SPParallelATADataType
SPApplicationsDataType
SPAudioDataType
SPBluetoothDataType
SPCardReaderDataType
SPComponentDataType
SPDeveloperToolsDataType
SPDiagnosticsDataType
SPDiscBurningDataType
SPEthernetDataType
SPExtensionsDataType
SPFibreChannelDataType
SPFireWireDataType
SPFirewallDataType
SPFontsDataType
SPFrameworksDataType
SPDisplaysDataType
SPHardwareDataType
SPHardwareRAIDDataType
SPNetworkLocationDataType
SPLogsDataType
SPManagedClientDataType
SPMemoryDataType
SPModemDataType
SPNetworkDataType
SPPCIDataType
SPParallelSCSIDataType
SPPowerDataType
SPPrefPaneDataType
SPPrintersSoftwareDataType
SPPrintersDataType
SPConfigurationProfileDataType
SPSASDataType
SPSerialATADataType
SPSoftwareDataType
SPStartupItemDataType
SPSyncServicesDataType
SPThunderboltDataType
SPUSBDataType
SPUniversalAccessDataType
SPNetworkVolumeDataType
SPWWANDataType
SPAirPortDataType

For further details how to use system_profiler run:

man system_profiler