Can't read plists

'defaults' does not read all plists. The defaults system handles preferences that are part of an applications 'defaults domain'.

"/Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist" is not a 'settings plist' it is info for the app version etc.

In Terminal read the manual via…

man defaults

or…

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man1/defaults.1.html

You need to look at other tools for editing/ reading or converting etc…

plutil

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man1/plutil.1.html#//apple_ref/doc/man/1…

PlistBuddy

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man8/PlistBuddy.8.html

plist

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man5/plist.5.html#//apple_ref/doc/man/5/…

NOTE: Some plists will be binary - you can convert them via plutil otherwise you can view & edit xml plists via cat or nano etc.

Actually you are right, I'm on 10.9 so I didn't check at the time but it prints the values inside the plist.

Maybe it's busted in 10.10, are the other Macs different OS X versions?

Have you checked the installed manual is the the same as the linked version?

Within the filepath section of that manual is this little gem…

WARNING: The defaults command will be changed in an upcoming major release to only operate on
preferences domains. General plist manipulation utilities will be folded into a different
command-line program.

Try to look for other plist editing command line tools…

apropos plist

Using the following syntax variations, I can read the Adobe Reader plist on Mavericks, and Yosemite 10.10.2:

defaults read /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist

defaults read -app /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app

defaults read com.adobe.Reader

plutil -p /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist | more

plutil -p /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist | egrep --color=auto "CFBundleShortVersionString" | egrep -o "([[:digit:].]+)"

Result: 11.0.10

Some versions of OS X have versions of the defaults command which do not like you including the file suffix i.e. the .plist file extension. Therefore the following should work on all Macs

defaults read /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info

but the following might not

defaults read /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist

jnojr wrote:

ballys:~ joliver.sa$ defaults read /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info

2015-01-28 09:43:23.310 defaults[62247:2368920]

Domain /Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/Info does not exist

Perhaps it is a permissions issue, try the following.

sudo defaults read /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info

You could also try the following however if the plist is in binary rather than XML format it will at best display gibberish.

cat /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist

(cat needs the exact filename including any file extension, unlike defaults.)

jnojr wrote:

ballys:~ joliver.sa$ ls -l /Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist

-rw-rw-r-- 1 root admin 10533 Dec 2 19:57 /Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/Info.plist

Everyone has read permission, no extended ACLs. Already thought of that :-)

The permissions of the parent folders could also be relevant as you need to be able to access the Contents folder for example. This means you need both r for read and x to enter those folders. However I am inclined to believe you have sufficient permission in order to be able to do an ls -l of the file.

If all your trying to do is look at it, using sudo might be worth while.