Defining Mac App Info.plist in code

README.md

Having to build an app and bundle it with an Info.plist can sometimes be inconvenient.

A while ago I found out it is possible to bundle your Info.plist directly into a section in the executable by adding the following to your linker options:

-sectcreate __TEXT __info_plist ../../source/Mac/Info.plist

With some trial and error it seems that it is possible to create such a section directly in code using the __attribute__ syntax.

Note that when you include an Info.plist normally you can use variables $(PRODUCT_NAME) which get expanded at some point during the bundling process, if you decided to use this for real you’d have to work around that?

Further questions:

1. How problematic is it in practice to not have $(PRODUCT_NAME) etc. variables / what workarounds are there?
2. If you have Info.plist data both in the executable and the .app bundle, which takes precedence?
3. Is this a terrible idea, what problems can it cause?

info_plist.cpp

// Add this to some compilation unit that gets built with your executable
//
// For a while I tried doing `const char*` which doesn't work. I think because only the pointer is stored
// in the specified section. Instead use `const char []`
//
// You can verify the data made it into the binary with `otool -P path/to/binary/executable`

const char __attribute__((used, section("__TEXT,__info_plist"))) info_plist[] =
R"(<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
    <string>$(DEVELOPMENT_LANGUAGE)</string>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>$(EXECUTABLE_NAME)</string>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER)</string>
    <key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
    <string>6.0</string>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_NAME)</string>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>$(PRODUCT_BUNDLE_PACKAGE_TYPE)</string>
    <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
    <string>1.0</string>
    <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
    <string>1.0</string>
    <key>LSApplicationCategoryType</key>
    <string>public.app-category.games</string>
    <key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
    <string>$(MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET)</string>
    <key>NSHighResolutionCapable</key>
    <true/>
    <key>NSPrincipalClass</key>
    <string>NSApplication</string>
    <key>NSSupportsAutomaticTermination</key>
    <true/>
    <key>NSSupportsSuddenTermination</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>)";