What is the simplest way to retrieve the device serial number of an iOS device using MonoTouch? - ios

Question

Does MonoTouch have a simple mechanism for retrieving the device serial number (not UDID) of an iOS device? Is there a third-party library which I can use to obtain this?
In case it matters, I'm looking to use this functionality in an in-house application and am not concerned with the App Store approval process.

Answer 1

UPDATE: from iOS 8, we cannot retrieve the serial number of our iDevice.
To retrieve iphone serial number from Monotouch, you can use this technic:
Create a static library .a from XCode that have a function to get serial number
In MonoDevelop, create a binding project to bind you .a library into C# classes/functions (http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/binding_objective-c_libraries)
In your application, you call this binding library (in step 2).
For detail:
STEP 1. In my library.a, I have a class DeviceInfo, here is the implementation to get Serial number
#import "DeviceInfo.h"
#import <dlfcn.h>
#import <mach/port.h>
#import <mach/kern_return.h>
#implementation DeviceInfo
- (NSString *) serialNumber
{
NSString *serialNumber = nil;
void *IOKit = dlopen("/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/IOKit", RTLD_NOW);
if (IOKit)
{
mach_port_t *kIOMasterPortDefault = dlsym(IOKit, "kIOMasterPortDefault");
CFMutableDictionaryRef (*IOServiceMatching)(const char *name) = dlsym(IOKit, "IOServiceMatching");
mach_port_t (*IOServiceGetMatchingService)(mach_port_t masterPort, CFDictionaryRef matching) = dlsym(IOKit, "IOServiceGetMatchingService");
CFTypeRef (*IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty)(mach_port_t entry, CFStringRef key, CFAllocatorRef allocator, uint32_t options) = dlsym(IOKit, "IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty");
kern_return_t (*IOObjectRelease)(mach_port_t object) = dlsym(IOKit, "IOObjectRelease");
if (kIOMasterPortDefault && IOServiceGetMatchingService && IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty && IOObjectRelease)
{
mach_port_t platformExpertDevice = IOServiceGetMatchingService(*kIOMasterPortDefault, IOServiceMatching("IOPlatformExpertDevice"));
if (platformExpertDevice)
{
CFTypeRef platformSerialNumber = IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(platformExpertDevice, CFSTR("IOPlatformSerialNumber"), kCFAllocatorDefault, 0);
if (CFGetTypeID(platformSerialNumber) == CFStringGetTypeID())
{
serialNumber = [NSString stringWithString:(__bridge NSString*)platformSerialNumber];
CFRelease(platformSerialNumber);
}
IOObjectRelease(platformExpertDevice);
}
}
dlclose(IOKit);
}
return serialNumber;
}
#end
STEP 2. In ApiDefinition.cs of my Binding Library project in Monotouch, I add this binding:
[BaseType (typeof (NSObject))]
public interface DeviceInfo {
[Export ("serialNumber")]
NSString GetSerialNumber ();
}
STEP 3. In my application, I import Reference to Binding library project in step 2, then add
using MyBindingProject;
...
string serialNumber = "";
try {
DeviceInfo nativeDeviceInfo = new DeviceInfo ();
NSString temp = nativeDeviceInfo.GetSerialNumber();
serialNumber = temp.ToString();
} catch (Exception ex) {
Console.WriteLine("Cannot get serial number {0} - {1}",ex.Message, ex.StackTrace);
}
Hope that helps. Don't hesitate if you have any question.