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iOS Build cheatsheet

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Tarik Demirović edited this page Jul 8, 2016 · 1 revision

iOS Build cheatsheet

Provisioning profile

A provisioning profile consists of several items. The most important are:

  • App ID
  • Signing certificates
  • List of device UDIDs that the app is allowed to run on

Signing certificate

A signing certificate is a security certificate unique to a person. It is used by Apple to identify the person and the private key for the certificate is used to sign the application.

There are two types of signing certificates:

  • Development certificate
  • Distribution certificate

Development certificates are used by individual developers for development and debugging. They allow the developer to deploy apps to test devices (UDIDs listed in the provisioning profile) and debug them.

Distribution certificates are used for publishing apps (e.g. to the App store).

Creating and downloading certificates

Before issuing a certificate, your Apple ID should be added to the development team on developer.apple.com.

After being added, follow the wizard on developer.apple.com to create and download the certificate and add it to your keychain.

To verify and complete this process:

  • Open Xcode
  • Go to Preferences -> Accounts
  • If your Apple ID is not displayed, add a new account and sign in with your Apple ID
  • After clicking on your Apple ID, your team should be displayed in the teams list
  • Select your team and click “View Details…”
  • Select “iOS Development” from Signing identities list and click create
  • Select desired provisioning profile from Provisioning profiles list and click download
  • Click “Done”

For further information visit apple developer documentation.

Building your app for the iOS Simulator

Prerequisites:

  • ios-sim installed (CLI tool used for launching iOS simulators - can be installed with Homebrew)
  • Desired simulator version installed (simulators can be installed in Xcode preferences -> Components)
  • CocoaPods gem installed (gem install cocoapods) - used for managing dependencies

To build the app:

  • Navigate to project folder (folder containing the project .xcworkspace folder)
  • Run pod setup
  • Run pod install
  • Run xcodebuild command with needed arguments:
xcodebuild -workspace projectName.xcworkspace -scheme schemeName -destination ‘platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 6,OS=9.3’ -derivedDataPath /desired/folder/for/appFile build

Note: If build schemes are missing:

Open .xcworkspace file with Xcode and close Xcode Run xcodebuild -list and use one of the listed schemes

After building the app, you can launch it with ios-sim.

ios-sim launch /desired/folder/for/appFile/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/YourApp.app --devicetypeid 'com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDeviceType.iPhone-6, 9.3’

Building your app for a device

Run xcodebuild:

xcodebuild -workspace projectName.xcworkspace -scheme schemeName -configuration Debug build CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY="iPhone Developer: Name Surname (AB1C23DEF4)" PROVISIONING_PROFILE="abcd1234-5678-123a-c12d-123a4b567cd8" -derivedDataPath /desired/folder/for/appFile

The code sign identity and provisioning profile ID should match the ones used for building the project. The code sign identity can be retrieved from the keychain, using Keychain Access.

To retrieve the provisioning profile ID:

  • Go to Xcode preferences -> Accounts
  • Select your Apple ID and Team
  • Click View Details
  • Right-click your provisioning profile from the Provisioning Profiles list and reveal it in Finder
  • The provisioning profile ID is the name of the revealed file (without the extension)

The app file can then be deployed to the device using ios-deploy. Install it using npm:

npm install -g ios-deploy

Connect iPhone and run ios-deploy to install app on device:

ios-deploy --bundle /desired/folder/for/appFile/Build/Products/Release-iphoneos/YourApp.app
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