> A potential snafu is that it seems to require a file to open,
> you can't just launch the application by itself. Anyone know a
> way around this?
Try typing in the Terminal.app
open nameofsometextfile.txt
I get the file opening with whatever would launch it on a double-click.
Try typing
open /Applications/Address\ Book.app
I get the Address Book launched.
If you wanted a Perl app to open an app, or a document, the only
necessity is that you have the permission to send things to the
logged-in user's window server ... so root, the logged-in user's ID,
and anyone who can sudo can all send these ... note that to launch an
application with root privs from the Terminal, you need to launch the
executable in the bundle directly, NOT just use open on the bundle
(this duplicates the behavior of double-clicking, even if root issues
"open"). So you can also directly launch the executable:
/Applications/Address\ Book.app/Contents/MacOS/Address\ Book &
(without the &, you get the Terminal waiting for the process to exit;
might be useful if your perl script pushes commands to Cocoa apps using
osascript, including a command to quit ...)
To launch the executable as root, use sudo or launch from a root shell.
But dropping the permissions of a root perl-running process to the
permissions of the logged-in user would be less alarming and likely do
what you need.
Take care,
--Chris
