How to extract contents from 'Payload' file in a apple macOS update package?

Question

I am extracting macOS sierra update package - macOSUpd10.12.1.pkg using following command to /tmp/macosupd directory.

pkgutil --expand /Volumes/         


        

Answer 1

There is an undocumented option to pkgutil, --expand-full, which uses the same syntax as pkgutil --expand.

pkgutil --expand-full [pkg] [dir]

This will completely "unarchive" a pkg or mpkg file.