Finding, from cocoa application, if a package installer (like DivXInstaller.pkg) is running - objective-c

Question

I do not know if this is possible, so I hope that the question does not appear stupid:
I can get in a cocoa application, or even using a bash script, the pid of a specific running Application. So I can take actions (such as alert and ask if you want to close it).
We can the same with a package (pkg), knowing its id (like "org.someIdentity.pkg") in some way?
EDIT
this is what i use in cocoa:
- (void)unWantedApp:(NSNotification *)notification {
NSDictionary *userInfo = [notification userInfo];
NSLog(#"userInfo == %#", userInfo);
if ([NSRunningApplication runningApplicationsWithBundleIdentifier:#"com.blabla"] || [NSRunningApplication runningApplicationsWithBundleIdentifier:#"com.blabla2"]) {
[[NSAlert alertWithMessageText:[NSString stringWithFormat:NSLocalizedString(#"blabla is running..", nil), [[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:(NSString *)kCFBundleNameKey]]
defaultButton:nil alternateButton:nil otherButton:nil informativeTextWithFormat:NSLocalizedString(#"Well, I hope you are not joking with more then one Tool at same time...", nil)] runModal];
}
}
EDIT
what i used with bash:
isOpen=$(ps auxwww | grep '/Applications/blabla.app' | grep -v 'grep' | wc -l)
if [ -e '/Applications/blabla.app' ]; then
if [ $isOpen -ge 0 ]; then
# do what you are intresting for... But a packages is not in Application folder and is opened by Installer.app :-(
fi
fi
EDIT
also the bash script can be used in cocoa in this way:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define SCRIPT "\
#/bin/bash \n\
if [ -e '/Applications/blabla.app' ];then\n\
#variable and other statement here(escape all special caracter and manually add the new line ->> \n)\n\
else\n\
exit 0\n\
fi"
int main()
{
system(SCRIPT);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Maybe this helps a bit:
app=${1:-VirtualBox} #tested on it
run_searched() {
echo "The installer installing $1 as: $2"
}
run_other() {
echo "The installer NOT installing $1. (but installing: $2)"
}
not_running() {
echo "The installer is not running"
}
isasdir="$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.installer.savedState"
isasfile="$isasdir/windows.plist"
if [[ -d "$isasdir" && -f "$isasfile" ]]
then
win=$(plutil -p "$isasfile" | grep '"NSTitle"' | sed 's:.*"NSTitle".*=>.*"\([^"]*\)":\1:')
if [[ "$win" =~ $app ]]
then
run_searched "$app" "$win"
else
run_other "$app" "$win"
fi
else
not_running
fi

Answer 2

I added a comment with some questions, but I will provide some kind of answer too.
As mentioned in my comment: If the applications run with absolute path you can probably look for processes with org.someIdentity
If applications you want to 'monitor' are running from the same path(s), you could probably do something along these lines (bash):
apps="org.someIdentity org.someOtherIdentity"
for app in ${apps}; do
echo "Checking app ${app}..."
lsof /Applications/${app}
done
This is a crude example - you might have to expand on the paths a bit (I'm not on a Mac), but the idea is that the application/package names exist in the file structure (as directories). Running lsof on these directories will tell us which processes are using resources in that directory (i.e. opened files). Depending on your needs you can probably pass lsof some more parameters.
I'm not saying this is a very pretty approach, though ;)

Answer 3

If using OS X 10.8 or later, pgrep is the best tool to return a list of process IDs by application name.
$ pgrep firefox
905