Installed path from bom file

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Installed path from bom file

Is there any way to tell where is the install location from .bom file?
Looks like it it only has the content of the package, so for example if I installed the package into /Applications/bla.app the .bom file for that package only lists the contents of the bla.app:
./Contents
./Contents/......
etc...

but nowhere does it say /Application/ ...

so how would I find that? especially if the package installed multiple other packages in different location (and say non standard locations)? all the generated .bom files list just the contents of their packages.... Is there something I need to add to the package when making it so that info is available?

that's on 10.5 pacakge, on 10.4 it makes a blabla.pkg in the Receipts directory instead of Recepits/boms/ but the Arcive.bom from that also does not list the actual install paths (though I can get that from the default location of package descriptor in that case)???

or in general, is there anything that would generate the 'uninstall' info including the actual install paths?

Posted on Sep 17, 2009 5:53 PM

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Answer 1

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Sep 17, 2009 6:48 PM in response to danchiK

Where are you getting the bom file? AFAIK, you need to look at the Archive.bom inside the installer package or the one in /Library/Receipts/boms/ using the lsbom command in the Terminal app. That command will tell you where every file is to be installed or where it was installed. respectively.

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Answer 2

danchiK Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 17, 2009 7:54 PM in response to baltwo

exactly those places that you mentioned.
Problem is that lsbom listing only shows where the package content is (relative to the package) so if I, for example, am making a package com.bla... (this is using the PackageMaker 3.0) and i have two items to be installed:
someapp.app (destination: /Applications/)
and
somefiles (destination: /Library/Application Support/somefiles/)
the resulting .bom files (two in this case com.bla.someapp.... and com.bla.somefiles...) both list the contents as:
./someapp.app
./someapp.app/Contents ....etc.
and
./somefiles/
./somefiles/file1 ... etc

nowhere does it give the actuall (absolute) path (such as /Applications/someapp.app/)
so if the user chooses the install location (other than default) then there's no way to know where they were actually installed.

the only solution I had so far is to make a package that has ALL paths already build in.... i.e. I made a directory with the structure resembling the file system:

myFakeDirectory/Applications/someapp.app.... etc
myFakeDirectory/Library/Application Support/somfiles.... etc
and then made package by including the contents of the myFakeDirectory and setting destination to /

now the lsbom on the resulting .bom after install actually shows:
./Applications
./Applications/someapp.app.... etc
./Library/Application Support/somefiles/.... etc

BUT doing it this way I still can't let the user choose different install locations because the lsbom on the created .bom file would still be showing the same paths...

Basically, so far the resulting .bom file(s) after install ALWAYS show the same paths (even if I changed the install locations during the installation)

So back to the question, is there a way to auto generate (or get at) the real install locations without having to manually generate the .bom with the right paths after the install?

I might be going in circles a bit on the questions 🙂... the point of all this is to have something "automaticly" generated after the install, so that there is some listing (sort of a log) that can be used for some UNinstaller for removing the installed files later.

oh and by "some UNinstaller" i mean anything, even if it is me looking at the listing and removing files by hand.

Message was edited by: danchiK

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Sep 17, 2009 10:54 PM in response to danchiK

Well, most, if not all app developers create the Archive.bom file with absolute paths to tell the installer where to put things. There's probably also a mechanism to build the resulting bom file that's stored in the Receipts, also showing the absolute paths.

That said, if you're building the installation package, then you should be posting to the developer forums under OS X Technologies. I don't build apps, so don't know what else to advise. Good luck.

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