launchctl / launchd on OSX

Launch definitions are in the form of plist documents

List jobs managed by launchctl (shows job label)
launchctl list

Show detail information about launchctl managed job
launchctl list job_label
i.e. launchctl list homebrew.mxcl.postgresql
# output will look like:
{
"Label" = "homebrew.mxcl.postgresql";
"LimitLoadToSessionType" = "Aqua";
"OnDemand" = false;
"LastExitStatus" = 0;
"PID" = 17312;
"TimeOut" = 30;
"StandardErrorPath" = "/usr/local/var/log/postgres/stderror.log";
"ProgramArguments" = (
"/opt/homebrew/bin/postgres";
"-D";
"/usr/local/var/postgres";
"-r";
"/usr/local/var/log/postgres/server.log";
);

};

Stop a job managed by launchctl
launchctl stop job_label

Good tool for making launchctl plists
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lingon/

Plists located in one of the following places
FILES

 ~/Library/LaunchAgents -  Per-user agents provided by the user. 

 /Library/LaunchAgents   -  Per-user agents provided by the administrator. 

 /Library/LaunchDaemons  -  System-wide daemons provided by the administrator. /System/Library/LaunchAgents -  Per-user agents provided by OS X.

 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons -  System-wide daemons provided by OS X.


https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/launchd.plist.5.html

Case Study Notes: install pyqrcode in a virtualenv on OSX

Kind of a buggy install.

mkdir qrcode; cd qrcode
virtualenv --distribute --no-site-packages ve
source ./ve/bin/activate
echo "pil" > requirements.pip
echo "http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/lucene/pylucene/trunk/jcc" >> requirements.pip

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pyqrcode/pyqrcode-0.2.1.tar.gz?use_mirror=

cd pyqrcode-0.2.1

# EDIT pyqrcode-0.2.1/Makefile
# change the call to jcc from
GENERATE=python -m jcc --jar $(LIBFILE) \
# TO
GENERATE=python -m jcc.__main__ --jar $(LIBFILE) \

make
make egg

# it will create qrcode-0.2.1-py2.6-macosx-10.6-universal.egg
# Edit qrcode-0.2.1-py2.6-macosx-10.6-universal.egg/qrcode/__init__.py
# change the line
_qrcode._setExceptionTypes(JavaError, InvalidArgsError)
# TO
_qrcode._set_exception_types(JavaError, InvalidArgsError)

pip -E ./ve/ install qrcode-0.2.1-py2.6-macosx-10.6-universal.egg

# http://pyqrcode.sourceforge.net/
# http://www.mail-archive.com/pythonmac-sig@python.org/msg09864.html
# http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/lucene-pylucene-dev/200904.mbox/%3C49EEECAC.7070606@cheimes.de%3E

Installing MySQL-python (MySQLdb) in a virtualenv on OSX 10.6

There were two problems with the MySQL-Python package that I had when installing on OS X 10.6
1) First, an error saying "EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found" when setup.py is run (through pip or easy_install)
2) Second, an error saying "ImportError: dynamic module does not define init function(init_mysql) when importing MySQLdb" when 'import MySQLdb" is issued

Causes:
1) This is caused by the build script not being able to find a MySQL program called mysql_config. This program is used to determine metadata about the mysql install. For example, the command "mysql_config --cflags" reports the flags used to build mysql.
2) This is caused by a mismatch between the architectures that MySQL was built with and the architecture that MySQL-python installer is trying to build and install MySQL-python as. To find what arch MySQL was built as, run "mysql_config --cflags" (this was i386 in my case). OSX tries to build MySQL-python as x86_64. Therefore, there is a arch mismatch.

Solution:
1) Locate the mysql_config binary location and add the path to the MySQL-python/site.cfg file as a config directive: "mysql_config = /opt/local/bin/mysql_config5"
2) Use the arch x86_64 (64 bit) version of MySQL compiled through MacPorts, not a i386 (32 bit) version downloaded off the internet and installed as a dmg.

Summary:
Assuming the MacPorts version of MySQL is installed, both issues can be solved by adding the mysql_config = /opt/local/bin/mysql_config5 config directive to the MySQL-python/site.cfg file.

# SCRIPTED SOLUTION: Create a script called setup.sh and add the following lines
virtualenv --distribute --no-site-packages ve
source ./ve/bin/activate
pip install -E ./ve -r requirements.1.pip # other deps
export ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64"
pip install -E ./ve MySQL-python
echo "mysql_config = /opt/local/bin/mysql_config5" >> ./ve/build/MySQL-python/site.cfg
pip install -E ./ve MySQL-python


Resources:
http://groups.google.com/group/python-virtualenv/msg/cf4f3117faea476b?pli=1
http://birdhouse.org/blog/2009/02/21/python-mysql-connections-on-mac-os/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2111283/how-to-build-64-bit-python-on-os-x-10-6-only-64-bit-no-universal-nonsense

OSX Color LS

Color LS for Mac OX
alias ls='ls -G'