Persist Cordova settings in Xcode

Question

I'd like to be able to build my project and open it in Xcode, without having to manually set variables through the Xcode UI. I started using Cordova's buildConfig parameter to specify some settings (especially using the legacy build system and setting the Swift version), and that works for command line builds, but they don't carry over into Xcode project files.

I was using a custom hook to modify build settings in my project.pbxproj file, but I was hoping this isn't necessary - just figuring out what the setting is called and which file it's in is a pain.

I haven't been able to find it in the Cordova documentation, so I'm asking... does Cordova have a way of persisting these build settings in Xcode?

Answer 1

You said that you tried using a custom hook, and this method is completely valid. You do not have to manually edit the file yourself if that is what you were doing. Using a hook and using the xcode npm package will make this a lot easier. In this case you only need to specify the key and value you want to change in the project file. If you want to change your workspace configuration (build system options) you would want to use the plist npm package. Using these tools it might be less of a pain for you, if you find it easier than the other answer posted.

Example editing the project:

var xcode = require('xcode'),
    fs = require('fs'),
    plist = require('plist'),
    projectPath = 'myproject.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj',
    workspacePath = 'myproject.xcworkspace/xcshareddata/WorkspaceSettings.xcsettings',
    myProj = xcode.project(projectPath);

myProj = myProj.parseSync();

// Add variable
myProj.AddBuildProperty('DEVELOPMENT_TEAM', 'XXXX', 'Debug');

// Save project file
fs.writeFileSync(projectPath, myProj.writeSync());

// Change workspace settings (build system)
fs.writeFileSync(workspacePath, plist.build({"BuildSystemType": "Original"}));

Answer 2

Cordova itself doesn't support direct manipulation of the Xcode project file (project.pbxproj) but you might be able to use cordova-custom-config to do so.

Add it as a plugin to your project:

cordova plugin add cordova-custom-config

Then add a <custom-preference> to your project config.xml, for example:

<custom-preference name="ios-XCBuildConfiguration-SWIFT_VERSION" value="2.3" />

Currently cordova-custom-config only supports manipulation of XCBuildConfiguration blocks. However, using xcodefunc preferences, you can directly call functions of the pbxProject interface of cordova-node-xcode which enables you to do some additional stuff (though not that interface is currently undocumented so you'll have to look at the code), for example:

<custom-preference name="ios-xcodefunc" func="addResourceFile">
    <arg type="String" value="src/content/image.png" flag="path" />
</custom-preference>

cordova-custom-config will apply the config using Cordova build lifecycle hooks to ensure the changes are persisted in the native Xcode project.