Find Mac OSX serial number - objective-c

Question

How to find the Mac OSX serial number.
Sometimes it is required to get serial number of a mac, and you validate on that.
I needed the same, few years back, when I developed a plugin for OsiriX. I was asked to release it in such a way, only few systems can use that plugin.
If we get any better solution than this, that will be quite helpful for all of us.

Answer 1

The following code is mainly copied from Technical Note TN1103,
with small modifications to return an NSString and to make it compile with ARC:
#include <IOKit/IOKitLib.h>
- (NSString *)getSerialNumber
{
NSString *serial = nil;
io_service_t platformExpert = IOServiceGetMatchingService(kIOMasterPortDefault,
IOServiceMatching("IOPlatformExpertDevice"));
if (platformExpert) {
CFTypeRef serialNumberAsCFString =
IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(platformExpert,
CFSTR(kIOPlatformSerialNumberKey),
kCFAllocatorDefault, 0);
if (serialNumberAsCFString) {
serial = CFBridgingRelease(serialNumberAsCFString);
}
IOObjectRelease(platformExpert);
}
return serial;
}
You have to add the IOKit.framework to your build settings.

Answer 2

This is the Swift version of the solution:
var serialNumber: String? {
let platformExpert = IOServiceGetMatchingService(kIOMasterPortDefault, IOServiceMatching("IOPlatformExpertDevice") )
guard platformExpert > 0 else {
return nil
}
guard let serialNumber = (IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(platformExpert, kIOPlatformSerialNumberKey as CFString, kCFAllocatorDefault, 0).takeUnretainedValue() as? String) else {
return nil
}
IOObjectRelease(platformExpert)
return serialNumber
}

Answer 3

This is a C++ version based on the TN1103 that Martin mention above.
C++ example:
#include <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h>
#include <IOKit/IOKitLib.h>
std::string example_class::getSerialNumber()
{
CFStringRef serial;
char buffer[64] = {0};
std::string seriaNumber("");
io_service_t platformExpert = IOServiceGetMatchingService(kIOMasterPortDefault,
IOServiceMatching("IOPlatformExpertDevice"));
if (platformExpert)
{
CFTypeRef serialNumberAsCFString = IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(platformExpert,
CFSTR(kIOPlatformSerialNumberKey),
kCFAllocatorDefault, 0);
if (serialNumberAsCFString) {
serial = (CFStringRef)serialNumberAsCFString;
}
if (CFStringGetCString(serial, buffer, 64, kCFStringEncodingUTF8)) {
seriaNumber = buffer;
}
IOObjectRelease(platformExpert);
}
return seriaNumber;
}