On macOS, how can I find the app's path which opens with “open” command?

Question

In macOS, one of the options to open an application via "open" command would be like so:

$ open -a "Google Chrome"
$ open -a "GIMP"

But I realized that the command above works even if the apps weren't in /Applications nor ~/Applications directory.

So, "how can I get the path of this app" using a command line?

I tried to use the find command and search the whole machine, but I thought that there would be an easier way to find it.

The reason is that I need to access the bin file inside the ".app" directory like below:

$ /path/to/GIMP.app/Contents/MacOS/GIMP-bin --help-all

Since the command below doesn't seem to parse the arguments.

$ open -a "GIMP" --args --help-all

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• macOS HighSierra (OSX 10.13.5)

Answer 1

I think I found another answer.

This script won't launch the app while checking the paths like the Applescript one.

Since it just greps the lsregister's dump result, it might not be as accurate as the Applescript, but so far it seems to work.

Script:

An alternative way to find the application path with bash (without using AppleScript) using lsregister command.

#!/bin/bash

# findApp.sh
# ==========
NAME_APP=$1
PATH_LAUNCHSERVICES="/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister"
${PATH_LAUNCHSERVICES} -dump | grep -o "/.*${NAME_APP}.app" | grep -v -E "Caches|TimeMachine|Temporary|/Volumes/${NAME_APP}" | uniq

Usage:

$ ./findApp.sh "Google Chrome"
/Applications/Google Chrome.app
$ ./findApp.sh GIMP
/Volumes/External_HDD/Applications/GIMP/GIMP_v2.8/GIMP.app

• REF: Applescript: Get path to .app without opening it @ Stackoverflow