sw_vers This simple built-in command provides the version and build number of Mac OS X being used. In 10.2.x, there is only one form of the command, which also works in 10.3 or greater: % sw_vers ProductName: Mac OS X Server ProductVersion: 10.4.9 BuildVersion: 8P135 In the Panther (Mac OS 10.3.x) and the Tiger (10.4.x) versions, you may optionally specify a parameter to get a single field's data. One oddity to watch for however is that although sw_vers has field labels that begin with an uppercase character, the command options always expects a lowercase character as the first letter. SW_VERS(1)  BSD General Commands Manual  SW_VERS(1) NAME  sw_vers - print Mac OS X operating system version information SYNOPSIS  sw_vers  sw_vers -productName  sw_vers -productVersion  sw_vers -buildVersion DESCRIPTION  sw_vers prints version information about the Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server  operating system running on the local machine.  When executed with no options sw_vers prints a short list of version  properties:  % sw_vers  ProductName: Mac OS X  ProductVersion: 10.3  BuildVersion: 7A100 The ProductName property provides the name of the operating system release (typically either "Mac OS X" or "Mac OS X Server"). The ProductVersion property defines the version of the operating system release (for example, "10.2.4" or "10.3"). The BuildVersion property provides the specific revision of the operating system as generated by the Mac OS X build system. OPTIONS The output of sw_vers can be refined by the following options. -productName Print just the value of the ProductName property. -productVersion Print just the value of the ProductVersion property. -buildVersion Print just the value of the BuildVersion property. EXAMPLES % sw_vers -productName Mac OS X % sw_vers -productVersion 10.3 % sw_vers -buildVersion 7A100 FILES /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist /System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist Mac OS X March 10, 2003 Mac OS X The Gestalt Alternative AppleScript, Python, and Perl provide access to the system's Gestalt values, which provides access to many useful system values. One caveat: many of the older selectors are no longer provided (or relevant) since the switch to OS X. The 'sysv', 'sys1', 'sys2', and 'sys3' selectors still work however, and can be used to get the all or part of the OS version number.