FU FU : Running OS X on AppleTV - method to query system profiler

[mattkime]

In follow up to: http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/490091/490377

System Profiler has a command line equivalent! system_profiler.

man system_profiler will give you all the gory details but here is the summary -

get list of hardware that system profiler can report -
system_profiler -listDataTypes

get just USB devices -
system_profiler SPUSBDataType

search for particular device (in this case, "Canon") -
system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep Canon

AppleScript that reports whether or the not specified device is connected -

try
do shell script "system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep Canon"
display dialog "you have it!"
on error
display dialog "you don't!"
end try

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I'd still like to figure out how to get launchd to run a script as root. its my last task.