.Dd October 27, 2022
.Dt SW_VERS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm sw_vers
.Nd print macOS system version information
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Nm
--productName
.Nm
--productVersion
.Nm
--productVersionExtra
.Nm
--buildVersion
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
prints macOS version information for the currently running operating system on the local machine.
.Pp
When executed with no options 
.Nm
prints a short list of version properties:
.Pp
.Bd -literal
      % sw_vers
      ProductName:              macOS
      ProductVersion:           13.0
      ProductVersionExtra:      (a)
      BuildVersion:             22A100
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Ar ProductName
property provides the name of the operating system release (typically "macOS"). The
.Ar ProductVersion
property defines the version of the operating system release (for example, "11.3" or "12.0"). The
.Ar ProductVersionExtra
property defines the Rapid Security Response version, if one is installed on the operating system (for example, "(a)" or "(b)"). The
.Ar BuildVersion
property provides the specific revision of the operating system as generated by the macOS build system.
.Sh OPTIONS
The output of
.Nm
can be refined by the following options. These long-form options can also be passed in lowercase for convenience.
.Bl -tag -width "--productVersionExtra"
.It Fl Fl productName
Print only the value of the ProductName property.
.It Fl Fl productVersion
Print only the value of the ProductVersion property.
.It Fl Fl productVersionExtra
Print only the value of the ProductVersionExtra property.
.It Fl Fl buildVersion
Print only the value of the BuildVersion property.
.El
.Pp
.Sh EXAMPLES
.Pp
.Bd -literal
% sw_vers --productName
macOS
.Ed
.Pp
.Bd -literal
% sw_vers --productVersion
13.0
.Ed
.Pp
.Bd -literal
% sw_vers --productVersionExtra
(a)
.Ed
.Pp
.Bd -literal
% sw_vers --buildVersion
22A100
.Ed
.Pp
.\" .Sh ENVIRONMENT      \" May not be needed
.\" .Bl -tag -width "ENV_VAR_1" -indent \" ENV_VAR_1 is width of the string ENV_VAR_1
.\" .It Ev ENV_VAR_1
.\" Description of ENV_VAR_1
.\" .It Ev ENV_VAR_2
.\" Description of ENV_VAR_2
.\" .El
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
.Pp
Previous versions of
.Nm
respected the
.Ar SYSTEM_VERSION_COMPAT
environment variable to provide compatibility fallback versions for scripts
which did not support the macOS 11.0+ version transition. This is no longer
supported, versions returned by
.Nm
will always reflect the real system version.
.Pp
.Nm
is backwards compatible with previous versions which expect options passed with a single dash, as in:
.Bl -tag
.It Fl productName
.El
.Pp
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width "/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist" -compact
.It Pa /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
.El