what is the best way to determine system OS?

[googleboy]

I did somethign that really seems far brighter...  approaching it from
a slightly different angle I just search through each line for the
right field title,  and then take that field's value from teh last line
of output.

Doesn't matter what OS, doesn't matter what format now.  It can cope
with it all.

:-)

Thanks for the advice!  I learned a bunch.