Node.js — Detect if Running on macOS

Sometimes you need to detect the platform that runs your Node.js process. You can do that by using Node.js’ built-in os module. It provides a method returning the operating system and you can then compare the platform against macOS.

Node.js Series Overview

  1. String Replace All Appearances
  2. Remove All Whitespace From a String in JavaScript
  3. Generate a Random ID or String in Node.js or JavaScript
  4. Remove Extra Spaces From a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  5. Remove Numbers From a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  6. Get the Part Before a Character in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  7. Get the Part After a Character in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  8. How to Check if a Value is a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  9. Check If a String Includes All Strings in JavaScript/Node.js/TypeScript
  10. Check if a Value is a String in JavaScript and Node.js
  11. Limit and Truncate a String to a Given Length in JavaScript and Node.js
  12. Split a String into a List of Characters in JavaScript and Node.js
  13. How to Generage a UUID in Node.js
  14. Reverse a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  15. Split a String into a List of Lines in JavaScript or Node.js
  16. Split a String into a List of Words in JavaScript or Node.js
  17. Detect if a String is in camelCase Format in Javascript or Node.js
  18. Check If a String Is in Lowercase in JavaScript or Node.js
  19. Check If a String is in Uppercase in JavaScript or Node.js
  20. Get the Part After First Occurrence in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  21. Get the Part Before First Occurrence in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  22. Get the Part Before Last Occurrence in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  23. Get the Part After Last Occurrence in a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  24. How to Count Words in a File
  25. How to Shuffle the Characters of a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  26. Append Characters or Words to a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  27. Check if a String is Empty in JavaScript or Node.js
  28. Ensure a String Ends with a Given Character in JavaScript or Node.js
  29. Left-Trim Characters Off a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  30. Right-Trim Characters Off a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  31. Lowercase the First Character of a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  32. Uppercase the First Character of a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  33. Prepend Characters or Words to a String in JavaScript or Node.js
  34. Check if a String is a Number
  35. Convert a String to Buffer
  36. Prevent Line Breaks in String Template Literals
  37. How to Implement a Custom `toString` Method (Coming soon)
  38. What Is `Symbol.toStringTag` and How to Use It (Coming soon)

Check if the Operating System is macOS

The os module in Node.js provides a platform method. This platform method allows you to identify the operating system. It returns the platform name as a string identifier.

One of the values returned by Os.platform is darwin. That’s the identifier you need to compare against to detect whether Node.js runs on macOS.

Here’s a sample function determining whether Node.js is running on macOS:

import Os from 'os'

/**
 * Determine whether the Node.js process runs on macOS.
 *
 * @returns {Boolean}
 */
function isMacOs () {  
  return os.platform() === 'darwin'
}

At the time of writing this tutorial, possible platform values are:

  • aix
  • android
  • darwin
  • freebsd
  • haiku
  • linux
  • openbsd
  • sunos
  • win32
  • cygwin
  • netbsd

That’s it!


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