Podcast - XcodeGen, generate Xcode project files

This week I started really getting to grips with XcodeGen. I have to say, I finally get why so many people use it.

You create a configuration file and then run XcodeGen. At the end of it you have a nice clean Xcode project file with your configuration including schemes, dependencies, targets and anything else you want in there.

There are a ton of options available to configure things.

So why might you do that? Well, firstly it helps solve source control problems. If you have ever shared an Xcode project file with another developer, you have probably had a merge conflict.

Goodluck solving it with non-human readable XML that Xcode generates.

That’s where XcodeGen comes in, you can simply run it again to generate a new project file and never check that sucker into source control to begin with. Instead you check in the configuration file for everyone to run.

If you have used Cocoapods then you will immediately appreciate how cool that is.