Is the "build" directory necessary in an XCode project?

Question

What would I be missing if I were to delete the build directory from an XCode 3.0 project every time I want to transfer the project (to cut back in size)?

Even after I clean the project, there are still about 5.9MB of files of which I do not know what any of them do. I am interested if anybody has information about this.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I delete the build directory all the time. It is even recommended when you use svn to ignore including the build directory since it messes up the build.

It just keeps the pre-complied object files, among some other temporary files, so you don't have recompile the whole thing from scratch on every build.

You can also put the build folder external to your project folder, in your preferences.

Answer 2

There is an option for locating the build directory in other places than project folder. An Xcode-wide option is found in Xcode preferences and a per-project option is found in project informations.