PBS Tidbit 7 – jq to Analyze macOS Installed Apps with Helma van der Linden on

In this special tidbit installment of Programming By Stealth, Helma van der Linden joins Allison to walk through how she solved a real-world problem using jq. The problem to be solved was a need to analyze the installed applications on her Intel-based Mac before migrating to her new Apple Silicon Mac.

She used a built-in Terminal command to access System Information to create a JSON file, and then used a series of jq filters to remove data she didn't need, and format what she kept into human-readable form. Helma walks us through every step of the way as she built up her jq script file to massage the data to her needs.

At the end Allison explains how to take Helma's final CSV output and analyze the data in a spreadsheet using a pivot table.