The Install Destinations and Directories

The Xcode Tools installer adds content to the directories described in this section.

Table 2-1 lists the directories in which the installer places the content of each install group.

Table 2-2 lists the directories created by the Xcode Tools installer.

Customizing Xcode Installations

Whether you’re a standard user or an administrator, you may want to customize an Xcode installation. For example, on a system with multiple Xcode installations, you may want to consolidate documentation in one place to reduce space usage. You may have developed a custom project template that needs to be accessible to several Xcode installations.

Note that for a particular Xcode release, Xcode applications look first in their <Xcode> directory, then the user’s home directory, and then the local domain. They do not look in, or have any knowledge of, other <Xcode> directories on the computer.

User-Managed Directories allow users to customize their Xcode environments:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Developer/<Xcode_release_number>/

• ~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/

For example, a user might want to install an Xcode project template in this directory:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project Templates/

The primary type of content users need to install in these locations are templates. In general, templates should go in the Shared location. Content in the Shared location is used by all releases of Xcode, while content in an Xcode_release_number location is only used by that release. Users generally want their custom templates available no matter which version of Xcode is installed.

Administrator-Managed Directories allow users with administrator privileges to customize Xcode environments:

• /Library/Application Support/Developer/<Xcode_release_number>/

• /Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/

• /Library/Developer/Shared. The contents of this directory are used by all Xcode releases on the computer.

The Shared Directory is a special case. If a system contains multiple Xcode releases, the /Library/Developer/Shared directory contains content for only one Xcode release—the last release installed. For example, if you install Xcode 3.0 and then Xcode 3.1 on the same computer, with the Developer Tools System Components group selected for both installs, /Library/Developer/Shared contains only Xcode 3.1 content.

The last release installed is the only release which is able to host distcc-distributed builds (see the "Share my computer for shared workgroup builds" option in Xcode's Distributed Builds preferences).

Xcode 2.5 Support

In Mac OS X v10.5 and later, developers can install and run Xcode 2.5 side-by-side with later versions of Xcode. Xcode 2.5 is the first version of the developer tools to support this feature. Apple recommends installing it alongside a later version if you need to support 2.x users or 2.x-only features (such as targeting Mac OS X 10.2.8).

When Xcode 2.5 is installed in Mac OS X v10.4, it resides in /Developer and behaves similarly to Xcode 2.4 and earlier releases. When Xcode 2.5 is installed in Mac OS X v10.5, you can choose the installation location. The default location is /Xcode2.5, so it does not remove or interfere with your Xcode 3 installation. In Mac OS X v10.5, Xcode 2.5 does not install the Developer Tools System Components, Unix Development Support, or WebObjects support. The Mac OS X v10.2.8 & v10.3.9 Support choice (off by default) installs some limited content in /usr.

Xcode 2.5 does not install performance tools in Mac OS X v10.5. Apple recommends using the Xcode 3 performance tools.

Intel Compiler Support

Xcode tools are not officially extensible. That is, there is no official support in Xcode for third-party tools such as compilers. The only exception is Intel and their C++ Compiler for Mac OS X. The installation of this compiler in Xcode is documented and supported by Intel.

For more information, see Intel C++ Compiler Installation Guide.

Xcode Directory Structure

The <Xcode> directory, the main directory of the Xcode environment, contains the essential applications, command-line tools, and resources needed for developing software for Mac OS X. These are some of its subdirectories:

The Xcode Tools 3.0 installer also optionally installs the standard system development tools and interfaces into /usr, so conventional makefile- and config-based builds will operate correctly.

Xcode Command-Line Tools Installation

Shimmed tools are command-line tools that are installed in <Xcode>/usr/bin but that have a counterpart in /usr/bin. This counterpart is not a complete program, but a shim or launcher that invokes one of its counterparts in an <Xcode> directory. These shims invoke the actual tools in the <Xcode> directory selected for CLI-based development, known as the Xcode CLI directory.

These are the Xcode shimmed tools:

• agvtool

• ibtool

• xcodebuild

• xcodeindex

• instruments

• opendiff

The shims determine which <Xcode> directory is the Xcode CLI directory through xcode-select. When writing software which needs to invoke Apple developer tools, your software should invoke xcode-select -print-path to find the path to your preferred developer tools install.

You specify the Xcode CLI directory on a shell session using the DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable or xcode-select.

When you install more than one Xcode release on your computer and need to use shimmed tools in scripts that are unaware of the location of the <Xcode> directory that contains the real tools, set the DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable to point to the desired <Xcode> directory or use the xcode-select -switch command.

For example, if you have Xcode 2.5 and Xcode 3.1 installed on your computer in /Xcode_2.5 and /Xcode_3.1, respectively, and want to use the Xcode 2.5 shimmed tools in a script or in a shell session, do either of the following:

• Set the DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable:

  export DEVELOPER_DIR="/Xcode_2.5"

• Use xcode-select:

  sudo xcode-select -switch /Xcode_2.5

The Xcode Tools installer will set xcode-select to the <Xcode> directory it is installing unless the Developer Tools System Components choice is turned off.

See the man page xcode-select for more information.

UNIX Command-Line Tools Installation

When a user installs the UNIX Development Support group, the Xcode UNIX tools, libraries, and man pages are installed in /usr (in addition to <Xcode>/usr). This content can be used for traditional UNIX software development.

If you install more than one Xcode release and want to use the UNIX tools from one of those releases instead of the ones in /usr, change the PATH and MANPATH environment variables to list <Xcode>/usr first.

For example, if you want to use the UNIX tools in <Xcode>/usr instead of the ones in /usr when invoking those tools using relative paths (gcc, not /usr/bin/gcc), change the environment variables PATH and MANPATH (if you want to use the corresponding man pages) using one of two methods:

• You can use xcode-select to construct the paths:

  export PATH=`xcode-select --print-path`/usr/bin:${PATH}

  export MANPATH=`xcode-select --print-path`/usr/share/man:${MANPATH}

• Rely on the DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable. If you are writing a script for a Run Script phase in Xcode or building your UNIX project with an External Target in Xcode (external targets can be used to kick off makefiles or other external build systems), Xcode sets DEVELOPER_DIR to the path of the developer directory with which you're building.

  You can use DEVELOPER_DIR to construct the paths as follows:

  export PATH=${DEVELOPER_DIR}/usr/bin:${PATH}

  export MANPATH=${DEVELOPER_DIR}/usr/share/man:${MANPATH}

  If you're not going through Xcode at all, you can set DEVELOPER_DIR in your own environment and then rely on it when constructing paths.

When writing software that uses the Xcode UNIX tools, Apple recommends using the copy of those tools installed in <Xcode>/usr instead of /usr, because your users may not have tools in /usr if they have disabled the optional UNIX Development Support choice in the Xcode installer. Your software can find the path to the <Xcode> directory with the xcode-select command (see previous section).