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Tried searching on Google but can't seem to find any information.

I need to execute a pkg file which exists within a dmg file via code. Reason is software update. I download an update via my application (which is a dmg) and need to run it. On Windows this is pretty straightforward: run the exe. Having trouble figuring out how to achieve this on a Mac.

As far as frameworks go, I'm using wxWidgets with cocoa (if that helps).

Ash
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I don't know of a way to do this directly with cocoa APIs, but you can use external commands to do it: use /usr/bin/hdiutil attach /path/to/image.dmg to mount the disk image, then something like /usr/sbin/installer -package /Volumes/mountedvolume/installer.pkg -target / to install the package (see man installer for more information and options). Note that if the package requires admin rights to install, you'll need to run the installer command as root.

EDIT: to get the full path of the mounted volume, you'll probably have to parse the output of hdiutil. It'll look something like this, although it'll depend significantly on the format of the disk image:

/dev/disk2              Apple_partition_scheme          
/dev/disk2s1            Apple_partition_map             
/dev/disk2s2            Apple_HFS                       /Volumes/mountedvolume
Gordon Davisson
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  • How do you obtain `mountedvolume` after the call to `hdiutil`? – Ash Apr 12 '15 at 08:16
  • Thanks Gordon. Turns out `` is the same as what is set using the `-volname` parameter when the dmg was built using `hdiutil`. Since my pkg file is a gui based installer, I use `open` instead of `installer` for the second command. – Ash Apr 13 '15 at 01:02
  • @Ash you should probably parse the output of hdiutil just to be sure -- if /Volumes/imagename already exists, it'll be mounted as /Volumes/imagename 1 (with a space), so if you try to open the package from /Volumes/imagename you'll either get file not found, or you'll open the wrong package. – Gordon Davisson Apr 13 '15 at 01:13