Ruby Dir.glob to provides some of the python os.walk functionality

The ruby Dir.glob command is pretty nice. It provides some of what os.walk provides for python and is a reasonable choice for working with files and directories. Double * gets you recursion. Quick and dirty way to list user home directories and user-level global environment file:

Dir.glob("/Users/**/.MacOSX/environment")

More comprehensive is to use dscl, but it is more work, first get a list of users:

dscl . -list /Users

Then iterate over each of those:

dscl . -read /Users/myuser NFSHomeDirectory

To get a rough list of Applications and their plists (note getting a list of everything installed is more complicated):

Dir.glob("/Applications/**/**app/Contents/Info.plist")