Open application from OSX Terminal with debug printouts

Question

I can open an application using open, like this:

open ./MyApp.app

But this doesn't display the application's debug printouts - which I need.

If I locate the binary inside the package manually and run that, I get the printouts fine, but I want to be able to just run the application.

Solution 1

The solution is to specify the absolute path of the application, rather than the path relative to the current directory.

For example,
open /home/matt/MyApp.app

Solution 2

.app Applications are directories, from the terminal open the executable rather than the whole directory, e.g...

open /Applications/my.app/Contents/MacOS/my

If you're not sure of the executable file name within the app contents, inspect my.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleExecutable.

Comments

[Matt]

I want the application to run hidden but must also use cocoa. This works fine if I set "Application is agent" in the plist file and run it as an actual application. If I just run the binary directly, it doesn't run hidden and displays the dock+menu components.

[Matt]

Actually if I run the binary by specifying the path rather than cd-ing to it, it works fine. Cool.

[HikeMike]

This shouldn't make any difference.