Launching macOS terminal and passing commands

Unity Engine
1

Hi,

I’m able to launch the Terminal, but I can’t figure out how to pass commands to it. The code below will open the Terminal, but any suggestions has to how I pass a command to the terminal?

ProcessStartInfo proc = new ProcessStartInfo();
proc.FileName = “/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app”;
Process.Start(proc);

Thanks for any help!

2

Google just a little longer and I think you want the .Arguments property, but I’ve not tried it personally.

3

Hi,

Yes I tried the argument property but then it tries to open an app directly and not via a command line. And this gives a warning from Mac OS. The binary must be opened via a command line in the terminal.

ProcessStartInfo proc = new ProcessStartInfo();
proc.FileName = “/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app”;
proc.Arguments = “/Users/[user]/Desktop/ARUnity5-5.3.2-tools-osx/bin/calib_camera”;
Process.Start(proc);

4

Ah, gotcha. Look inside Terminal.app (right click to Show Package Contents) and then dig into Contents/MacOS and there should be an actual executable binary. Pass that as your executable filename, then I think the args will work.

BTW, terminal is contained in under /Applications/Utilities

5

Yes! That did the trick. Thanks!

1 Like
6

That’s actually a handy way to get two instances of an app running on MacOSX. I have a bash alias (simply ‘u’) that links to Unity’s equivalent binary and I can launch as many instances of Unity as I want, as long as each points to a different project. Handy when you just want to fire up another project to see how you did something, without leaving your current project.

7

This solution still doesnt work for me… What I have…

ProcessStartInfo proc = new ProcessStartInfo();
proc.FileName = “/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal”;
proc.Arguments = “ls”;
Process.Start(proc);

The terminal window opens up, but nothing else executes…

8

Having the same problem as well. Any chance you solved this…? Seems like no matter what I’ve tried it just won’t write anything to terminal.

9

Anyone figure this out yet?

10

Same here, I cannot find a good way to Open a Terminal and run a script like you could easily do in Windows.

I found 2 workaround for this:

  1. Write a shell script and execute that instead:
new ProcessStartInfo
{
  FileName = "/System/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal",
  Arguments = "myscript.sh"
}
  1. Write a apple script to open terminal and execute your scripts:
string reOpenTerminalScript = $"tell application \\\"Terminal\\\" to if not (exists window 1) then reopen";
string activateTerminalScript = $"tell application \\\"Terminal\\\" to activate";
string runMyScript = $"tell application \\\"Terminal\\\" to do script \\\"echo hello\\\" in window 1";
string osaScript = $"osascript -e \'{reOpenTerminalScript}\' -e \'{activateTerminalScript}\' -e \'{runMyScript}\'";
string bashCommand = $" -c \"{osaScript}\"";

processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
{
    UseShellExecute = false,
    FileName = "/bin/bash",
    CreateNoWindow = false,
    Arguments = bashCommand
};

Credit:

1 Like
11

Thanks a lot!

It really helped me. For those who struggling with it: put a lot of attention to backslashes and spaces.