pbxprojHelper

pbxprojHelper lets you create and modify Xcode projects.

Quickstart

Choose your Xcode project file by clicking Select button. Both .xcodeproj and .pbxproj file extensions are supported. The path of project file you selected will be displayed on the text field. The outline view shows data of project file.

Choose configuration file by clicking Choose JSON File. Configuration file contains changes you want to make to your project. You can create a configuration file with json format, or generate it using JSON Configuration Generator tool provided by pbxprojHelper. The outline view will refresh data after you choose a json file.

Clicking Apply button will write changes made by json configuration to project file you selected.

Revert button lets you revert your project file to latest version.

Outline View

The outline view shows entire data of project.pbxproj file. You can expand an item if it’s type is collection(dictionary or array). For example, the value for key objects is an dictionary which contains 34 key-value pairs. You can expand objects to view its content. For key-value pairs of dictionary, the 1st/2nd column means Key/Value. If the value is a collection(not String or Number.ect), the 2nd column shows a description of the collection; For elements of array, the 1st column means Element, but the 2nd column contains nothing.

You can copy the text in outline view by just a click on the text. If you want to copy the whole keypath from root node, double click it.

Filter

You can filt the content of outline view by typing a string in the Filter Text Field. It’s not case sensitive.

JSON Configuration File

Configuration Rules

The configuration file contains a list of rules. Here is an example of configuration:

{

"insert" : {

"objects.A45A665D1D98286400DBED04.children" : [

"a",

"b",

"c"

],

"classes" : {

"xixihaha": 5,

"aaaaa" : "养小鱼"

}

},

"remove" : {

"objects.A45A666D1D98286400DBED04.buildSettings" : [

"ALWAYS_SEARCH_USER_PATHS"

]

},

"modify" : {

"archiveVersion" : "2"

}

}

The root object must be a dictionary with 3 key-value pairs. You can insert, remove and modify values through their key paths in project.pbxproj file.

Insert

The example above inserts 3 elements("a","b","c") into the children array. Note that the keypath "objects.A45A665D1D98286400DBED04.children" must be valid. The value of "children" should be an array and the value of "classes" should be a dictionary. In a word, the type of incremental data should be same with original data in project.pbxproj file.

Remove

The example above removes a key-value pair whose key equals "ALWAYS_SEARCH_USER_PATHS" from a dictionary named buildSettings. The value of keypath should always be an array. This array contains keys/elements you want to removed from dictionary/array.

Modify

Modify the value of keypath, so easy.

Configuration Generator

Programmer is lazy. I can’t stand wasting my time on writing json files, so I create the powerful tool called JSON Configuration Generator:

JSON Configuration Generator Window

There are two ways to open the Generator window:

Menu -> Window -> JSON Configuration Generator

Key Equivament: Shift+Command+0

You can use it in an oversimplified and crude way. Just select two project files and json save path, then click the Generate button, and you will get a json file containing changes between modified and original project file.

Conversely, you can use this json file when you want to apply these changes to certain project file again. Please take care of this json file.

Backups

Each time you click Apply button on main window, pbxprojHelper will use original or last modified project file to create backup file with backup extension in Documents folder of sandbox first, and then apply changes on project file.

Revert button uses these backups to revert project file to the latest version.