How to determine operating system in elisp?

emacs elisp
ljs picture ljs · Nov 30, 2009 · Viewed 15.9k times · Source

How do I programmatically determine which OS Emacs is running under in ELisp?

I would like to run different code in .emacs depending on the OS.

Answer

scottfrazer picture scottfrazer · Nov 30, 2009

The system-type variable:

system-type is a variable defined in `C source code'.
Its value is darwin

Documentation:
Value is symbol indicating type of operating system you are using.
Special values:
  `gnu'         compiled for a GNU Hurd system.
  `gnu/linux'   compiled for a GNU/Linux system.
  `darwin'      compiled for Darwin (GNU-Darwin, Mac OS X, ...).
  `ms-dos'      compiled as an MS-DOS application.
  `windows-nt'  compiled as a native W32 application.
  `cygwin'      compiled using the Cygwin library.
Anything else indicates some sort of Unix system.

Related questions

How do I set the size of Emacs' window?

I'm trying to detect the size of the screen I'm starting emacs on, and adjust the size and position the window it is starting in (I guess that's the frame in emacs-speak) accordingly. I'm trying to set up my .emacs …

Read More
How do I create an empty file in emacs?

How can I create an empty file from emacs, ideally from within a dired buffer? For example, I've just opened a Python module in dired mode, created a new directory, opened that in dired, and now need to add an …

Read More
How to achieve code folding effects in Emacs?

Whats the best way to achieve something like code folding, or the type of cycling that org-mode uses. What would be the best solution in elisp to create this type of behavior? EDIT: I'm sorry I was not clear. I …

Read More