Archive with Xcode's command line build tool (xcodebuild archive)

Question

The command line tool to build Xcode projects, xcodebuild, has a new build action available in Xcode 4: archive.

From man xcodebuild:

       archive     Archive a scheme from the build root (SYMROOT).  This requires specifying
                   a workspace and scheme.

Unfortunately, when I try to use it I get an error:

$ xcodebuild archive -workspace SimpleTestApp.xcworkspace -scheme SimpleTestApp
xcodebuild: error: Failed to build workspace SimpleTestApp with scheme SimpleTestApp.
    Reason: The selected run destination is not valid for this action.

My impression is this doesn't actually work yet. Has anyone got it to work? If so, how?

Yes, it works fine within the IDE. But I want to automate my build. — Steven Fisher, May 06 '11 at 21:56
Make sure the name of the scheme is exactly the same. my scheme was called "MyProject Ent" in Xcode and from command line I was calling "MyProjectEnt" and that was not correct. Edit this is "Manage Schemes" — RPM, Jun 13 '13 at 20:04
It probably would have worked if you'd quoted it, too: `-scheme "MyProject Ent"` — Steven Fisher, Jun 13 '13 at 20:07

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

11

For information I'm 99% sure that xcodebuild archive was working in a previous Xcode 4 version, maybe a Beta... And this is really frustrating since -verbose and syslogs doesn't bring much details.

So I would call that... a Bug!

If automating your build is what you are looking for, there is a way to generate IPA archive from command line using xcrun PackageApplication

With xcrun to package and xcodebuild to build, you can almost achieve what xcodebuild archive is supposed to do. I would prefer to use xcodebuild since we can expect this to generate a .xcarchive (.app + .dSYM), more interesting than an IPA.

Not so off-topic, but if anyone knows how to get more logs from xcodebuild and Xcode, I'm really interested!

EDIT: After looking in Apple Forums, I confirm this is an Xcode BUG introduced with GM2... I guess Apple Xcode engineers are working on Xcode 4.1 that I think final version will be released with OSX Lion... In june maybe? With a fix? :(

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

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answered May 13 '11 at 12:31

Vincent Guerci

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That's my forum thread. :) It seems like what I want isn't possible at this point. – Steven Fisher May 18 '11 at 18:28
Haha, I should have checked names! That is bogging me too, I love archives concept, and the simplification it brings for AppStore submission, but would love too to automate this in the beta stage! >_ – Vincent Guerci May 18 '11 at 18:41
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It seems to be broken again in 4.3.2: `unsupported build action 'archive'` :( – keegan3d Jun 11 '12 at 21:53
I've abandoned the idea of using this a long time ago... and use Xcode IDE to do this... man `xcodebuild` still mention `archive` as a valid `buildaction`... sounds like a bug... again. – Vincent Guerci Jun 13 '12 at 17:22

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 24 '12 at 22:29

8

This seems to work for me:

xcodebuild -project TestApp.xcodeproj  -scheme TestApp -configuration "Ad Hoc" archive

answered Apr 24 '12 at 22:29

Daniel X Moore

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 06 '11 at 06:18

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Is this working from the GUI ? Project -> Build for Archive Then you can find the archive back in Organizer (archive Tab) It is working for me in the GUI

answered May 06 '11 at 06:18

Sébastien Stormacq

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Yeah, it works fine in the GUI. xcodebuild is the name of the command line component to do it. I'm clarifying this a bit in the question, thanks. – Steven Fisher May 06 '11 at 21:56

Archive with Xcode's command line build tool (xcodebuild archive)

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