Automating Xcode development

Question

Can everything which is done through Xcode GUI be done through command line, like changing app name, changing provisional profile, distribution profile? If yes then how. May be it can be done through xcodebuild , but till now i am only able to compile through xcodebuild.

Answer 1

But are there any useful tutorials

Answer 2

Yes. Building can be done through xcodebuild:

$ xcodebuild -help
Usage: xcodebuild [-project <projectname>] [-activetarget] [-alltargets] [-target <targetname>]... [-parallelizeTargets] [-activeconfiguration] [-configuration <configurationname>] [-sdk <sdkfullpath>|<sdkname>] [-xcconfig <filepath>] [<buildsetting>=<value>]... [<buildaction>]...
       xcodebuild [-version [-sdk [<sdkfullpath>|<sdkname>] [<item>] ]
       xcodebuild [-showsdks]
       xcodebuild [-find <binary> -sdk <sdkfullpath>|<sdkname>]
       xcodebuild [-list]

…but I see you already know that. The application name can be changed by simply editing the Info.plist file. And I think you can change the profiles by hacking the *.pbxproj file (it’s a regular text file). You can save a copy of the project file, change a profile through the IDE and then diff the new version and the saved copy to see the changes:

$ find . -name '*.pbxproj'
./Source/Foo.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
$ cp Source/Foo.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj ~/Desktop
# …now changing the profile through IDE…
$ diff Source/Foo.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj ~/Desktop/project.pbxproj 
517d516
< "CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY[sdk=iphoneos*]" = "…";
534d532
< "PROVISIONING_PROFILE[sdk=iphoneos*]" = "…";

But it depends on what you are trying to do. You could switch the profiles much easier by setting different profiles for different build modes (Debug/Distribution/Whatever).