Xcode 4 - Command line builds of iPhone apps
Here’s the gist of how you can build your iPhone app from the command line. Change into the folder that contains your *.xcodeproj, and run the following:
xcodebuild -target "My Target" -scheme "My Scheme" -configuration Release clean archive
This will generate an xcode archive (*.xcarchive) in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/DATE/… somewhere.
Now you’ve got your xcarchive, and assuming that your project was set up to sign using an ad-hoc provisioning profile, how to generate the IPA file that you can submit to TestFlight for your testers?
/usr/bin/xcrun -sdk iphoneos PackageApplication "/absolute/path/to/MyApp.xcarchive/Products/Applications/MyApp.app" -o "/absolute/path/to/MyApp.ipa"
Note that PackageApplication somehow only works if you use absolute paths. So ~ and relative paths don’t work – beware of that.
Now, if you’re clever, you can script all this with ruby to be nicely automated. I’ll get into that in another post. This is part one of a series on continuous integration of iOS apps that i’m working on…
Thanks for reading! And if you want to get in touch, I'd love to hear from you: chris.hulbert at gmail.
Chris Hulbert
(Comp Sci, Hons - UTS)
Software Developer (Freelancer / Contractor) in Australia.
I have worked at places such as Google, Cochlear, Assembly Payments, News Corp, Fox Sports, NineMSN, FetchTV, Coles, Woolworths, Trust Bank, and Westpac, among others. If you're looking for help developing an iOS app, drop me a line!
Get in touch:
[email protected]
github.com/chrishulbert
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