Determine Computer name

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Level 1

1 points

Determine Computer name

Similarly to how I just asked about finding out the WiFi name, I'd also like to script out how to find the computer name. Not the results of 'uname -n' but what is reflected in System Preferences > Sharing. I was able to do it but I'm certain there is a better way- I'm just not familiar enough with sed, awk, etc to do it efficiently. Also, there might be another command altogether that does the trick.

My command ultimately is

$ cat /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist|awk '/ComputerName/ {getline;print}'|awk -F'[<|>]' '/string/{print $3}'
mymacbookpro

Towards the bottom of preferences.plist is the computer name. It's in XML underneath the line containing ComputerName.

###
### Explanation
###
### Print the lines after any occurance of "ComputerName"
$ cat /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist|awk '/ComputerName/ {getline;print}'
 <string>mymacbookpro</string>
 <integer>0</integer>
### Remove XML/HTML-ish tags, which also only prints the first instance (not sure why)
$ cat /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist|awk '/ComputerName/ {getline;print}'|awk -F'[<|>]' '/string/{print $3}'
mymacbookpro

Message was edited by: ai4891
I was able to shorten it from the original but I still think there's room for improvement, any ideas?

Posted on Mar 11, 2009 8:21 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 11, 2009 8:54 PM in response to ai4891

$ system_profiler | grep "Computer Name"

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Answer 2

ai4891 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2009 3:23 AM in response to Doug Niven1

Thanks! I can get the same data by simply running

system_profiler|awk '/Computer Name/ {print $3}'

But, it must poll the hardware because it causes my DVD drive to make a noise. I imagine if I distribute this on a script it'll freak out my users. Can system_profiler be run without polling the optical drive?

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

56,939 points

Mar 12, 2009 6:55 AM in response to ai4891

Does this cause DVD activity?


system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | awk '/Computer Name:/ {print $3}'

But because your Computer Name may have spaces in it, you might want to try:


system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | awk '
 match($0,/Computer Name: /) {
 print substr($0,RSTART+RLENGTH)
 }
'

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Answer 4

ai4891 Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 12, 2009 1:11 PM in response to BobHarris

That worked swimmingly, thanks!!

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Answer 5

biovizier

Level 5

7,931 points

Mar 12, 2009 3:38 PM in response to ai4891

In Leopard, there is:<pre>
networksetup -getcomputername</pre>

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Answer 6

D7

Level 2

300 points

Mar 15, 2009 7:58 PM in response to ai4891

The hostname command should return the computer name.

# hostname
niihau.local

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