macos - Execute an application on Mac OS X when a particular type of USB device is connected?

Question

I need to implement a Mac OS X application. In my application I need to do two things:

1. Execute / Open an application when a particular type of USB device is connected to the system.
2. Read the data from USB and upload it to a web server.

I do not have much experience in Mac OS X development. Can anyone please suggest the best documents to reach my goals?

Answer 1

You can use launchd. Try man launchd and man launchd.plist.

It seems that launchd can work with USB events, even though this feature is poorly documented. I found it on: man xpc_set_event_stream_handler

Here's an example. If you put the following into: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.example.plist, your program should start when a USB device is connected.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.example.program</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>/path/to/program</string>
    </array>
    <key>LaunchEvents</key>
    <dict>
            <key>com.apple.iokit.matching</key>
            <dict>
                    <key>com.apple.device-attach</key>
                    <dict>
                            <key>idProduct</key>
                            <integer>1234</integer>
                            <key>idVendor</key>
                            <integer>1337</integer>
                            <key>IOProviderClass</key>
                            <string>IOUSBDevice</string>
                            <key>IOMatchLaunchStream</key>
                            <true/>
                    </dict>
            </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>