Xcode

Description

This plugin provides a few utilities that can help you on your daily use of Xcode and iOS development.

To start using it, add the xcode plugin to your plugins array in ~/.zshrc:

plugins=(... xcode)

Aliases

Alias	Description	Command
xcb	Build Xcode projects and workspaces	xcodebuild
xcdd	Purge all temporary build information	rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/*
xcp	Show currently selected Xcode directory	xcode-select --print-path
xcsel	Select different Xcode directory by path	sudo xcode-select --switch
xx	Opens the files listed in Xcode	open -a "Xcode.app"

Functions

`xc`

Opens the current directory in Xcode as an Xcode project or a Swift package. This will open one of the .xcworkspace, .xcodeproj, .swiftpm and Package.swift files that it can find in the current working directory. You can also specify a directory to look in for the Xcode files. Returns 1 if it didn't find any relevant files.

`xx`

Opens the files listed in Xcode, multiple files are opened in a multi-file browser.

`simulator`

Opens the iOS Simulator from your command line, dependent on whichever is the active developer directory for Xcode. (That is, it respects the xcsel setting.)

`xcselv`

Selects different Xcode installations by version name. This is like xcsel, except it takes just a version name as an argument instead of the full path to the Xcode installation. Uses the naming conventions described below.

xcselv <version> selects a version
Example: xcselv 6.2
xcselv default selects the default unversioned Applications/Xcode.app
xcselv with no argument lists the available Xcode versions in a human-readable format
xcselv -l lists the installed Xcode versions
xcselv -L lists the installed Xcode versions in a short version-name-only format
xcselv -p prints info about the active Xcode version
xcselv -h prints a help message

The option parsing for xcselv is naive. Options may not be combined, and only the first option is recognized.

Multiple Xcode Versions

The xcselv command provides support for switching between different Xcode installations using just a version number. Different Xcode versions are identified by file naming conventions.

Versioned Xcode Naming Conventions

Apple does not seem to explicitly define or provide tooling support for a naming convention or other organizational mechanism for managing versioned Xcode installations. Apple seems to have released beta versions with both Xcode<version>.app and Xcode-<version>.app style names in the past, and both styles show up in forum and blog discussions.

We've adopted the following naming convention:

Versioned Xcode installations are identified by the name Xcode-<version> or Xcode<version>.
The - separating "Xcode" and the version name is optional, and may be replaced by a space.
The versioned name may be applied to the Xcode.app itself, or a subdirectory underneath Applications/ containing it.
You cannot version both the Xcode.app filename itself and the containing subfolder.
Thus, all of the following are equivalent.
Applications/Xcode-<version>.app
Applications/Xcode-<version>/Xcode.app
Applications/Xcode<version>.app
Applications/Xcode <version>.app
Applications/Xcode <version>/Xcode.app
Both the system /Applications/ and user $HOME/Applications/ directories are searched.
The user's $HOME/Applications/ takes precedence over /Applications for a given version.
If multiple naming variants within the same Applications/ folder indicate the same version (for example, Xcode-3.2.1.app, Xcode3.2.1.app, and Xcode-3.2.1/Xcode.app), the precedence order is unspecified and implementation-dependent.
The <version> may be any string that is valid in a filename.
The special version name "default" refers to the "default" unversioned Xcode at Applications/Xcode.app (in either /Applications/ or $HOME/Applications/).
Version names may not start with "-" or whitespace.

The restrictions on the naming convention may need to be tightened in the future. In particular, if there are other well-known applications whose names begin with the string "Xcode", the strings allowed for <version> may need to be restricted to avoid colliding with other applications. If there's evidence that one of these naming techniques is strongly favored either in practice or by Apple, we may tighten the naming convention to favor it.

Caveats

Using xcsel or xcselv to select an Xcode that is installed under your $HOME may break things for other users, depending on your system setup. We let you do this anyway because some people run OS X as effectively single-user, or have open permissions so this will work. You could also use $DEVELOPER_DIR as an alternative to xcsel that is scoped to the current user or session, instead of a global setting.

This does not verify that the version name in the Xcode filename matches the actual version of that binary. It is the user's responsibility to get the names right.

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