After some experimentation:
gestalt('sysa') doesn't work because it returns the system architecture seen
within the Rosetta environment, which is 2 (PPC).
The method described in
http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/realbasic-nug/2006-05/
msg00705.html does work, but I don't like it. It fits my definition of a
"kludge," because it is detecting the presence of Rosetta by an
apparently-undocumented idiosyncrasy, instead of detecting the actual hardware
environment.
I may well yet end up using this method, of course.
It basically consists of obtaining the hw_model (not hw_machine) value by a
direct call to the sysctl api. This does not return the hw_model of the
hardware environment, but the hw_model value in the Rosetta simulated
environment; it relies on the seemingly undocumented observation that a
hardware PPC environment will return something like "PowerMac7,2" but the
Rosetta environment returns "PowerMac" + chr(0) (eight characters, with a null
byte included in the returned string.
A promising method is
dim s = shell
dim arch = result
s = new shell
s.execute "sysctl hw.machine"
result = s.result
result = result.nthfield(":", 2)
result = result.trim
Apparently, in the Rosetta environment the call to the sysctl utility is
executed within the native environment, not the Rosetta environment, and
s.result returns "hw.machine: i386" + chr(13), and after removing everything up
to the colon and trimming the result, I get "i386".
Within the native-PPC environment, I get "Power Macintosh".
Only time will tell what happens in the native Intel-core environment, but I
expect to get "i386".
The only riddle now is: what documentation spells out the values that
hw.machine can assume? Will it always be i386 on Intel-architecture platforms?
The fact that it returns "i386" on a Pentium is reassuring, but... holy cow...
Mac OS X documentation is a mare's nest.
The man page for the sysctl utility says "For a detailed description of these
variable see sysctl(3)".
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/sysctl.3.html
helpfully says
HW_MACHINE
The machine class.
with no indication of _what values can be possibly be returned_ for the
"machine class."
The header file, /usr/include/sys/sysctl.h (yes, I'm learning... apparently in
the Unix world header files are considered to be "documentation") says
#define HW_MACHINE 1 /* string: machine class */
with no hint as to where "machine classes" are defined. It also has a
#define HW_MACHINE_ARCH 12 /* string: machine architecture */
and does not explain what the difference is between a machine "class" and a
machine "architecture" or where one would find them documented...
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