A: 

there is something wrong type with your project files. try to open the projectfile find it, vim yourproject.xcodeproj/project.pbproj

then search the "COMPILER_FLAGS = " /s COMPILER_FLAGS = "

if it searched, you would see the files which has wrong typed in your xcode projects.

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately this was such a long time ago that I'm no longer working in the project. The problematic project files are also not around anymore, since I created a new project to work around the problem as stated in the comment above.
sdb