xcode-select – Managing Multiple Versions Of Xcode

It’s not uncommon developers to have multiple versions of Xcode installed. For example, I typically have the latest beta as well as the most current production release installed.

However, there are times when you may want various tools, such as xcodebuild, to point to a specific Xcode folder. To faciliate this, you can use xcode-select. A common use case is if you use scripts and/or makefiles to build your projects.

Once you set the Xcode folder, xcodebuild will be invoked from the folder you specified.

The command line options are below:

xcode-select [-help] xcode-select [-switch xcode_folder_path] xcode-select [-print-path] xcode-select [-version]

Here is how to print the current Xcode path:

~$ xcode-select --print-path /Developer/Applications/Xcode.app

Line number 2 shows the current version of Xcode that is ‘active.’ If you are accessing xcodebuild or other related tools from a script, –print-path is the preferred means to determine the current Xcode location.

Use the -switch option to change to another version of Xcode on your system:

$ sudo xcode-select -switch /Users/JOHN/Downloads/Xcode45-DP3.app

This changes to the Xcode 4.5, Developer Preview 3 on my system. Note that root access is required to set the Xcode location, thus I have used sudo to execute the command as root.

Printing the path now looks as follows:

~$ xcode-select --print-path /Users/JOHN/Downloads/Xcode45-DP3.app/Contents/Developer

To switch back to Xcode installed in the /Applications directory:

$ sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/

You can read more about xcode-select by view the man page from a terminal:

~$man xcode-select