Manage the active developer directory for Xcode and BSD tools.
Syntax
xcode-select [-h|--help] [-s|--switch path] [-p|--print-path] [-v|--version]
Key
-h, --help
Print the usage message.
-s path, --switch path
Sets the active developer directory to the given path, for example /Applications/Xcode-beta.app.
This command must be run with superuser permissions (see sudo), and will affect all users on the system.
To set the path without superuser permissions or only for the current shell session, use the DEVELOPER_DIR
environment variable instead (see ENVIRONMENT).
-p, --print-path
Prints the path to the currently selected developer directory.
This is useful for inspection, but scripts and other tools should use xcrun(1) to locate tool
inside the active developer directory.
-r, --reset
Unset any user-specified developer directory, so that the developer directory will be found via
the default search mechanism. This command must be run with superuser permissions (see sudo), and
will affect all users on the system.
-v, --version
Print xcode-select version information.
--install
Open a user interface dialog to request automatic installation of the command line developer tools.
xcode-select controls the location of the developer directory used by xcrun(1), xcodebuild(1), cc(1), and other Xcode and BSD development tools. This also controls the locations that are searched for by man(1) for developer tool manpages.
This allows you to easily switch between different versions of the Xcode tools and can be used to update the path to the Xcode if it is moved after installation.
When multiple Xcode applications are installed on a system (e.g. /Applications/Xcode.app, containing the latest Xcode, and /Applications/Xcode-beta.app containing a beta) use xcode-select --switch path/to/Xcode.app to specify the Xcode that you wish to use for command line developer tools.
After setting a developer directory, all of the xcode-select provided developer tool shims (see FILES) will automatically invoke the version of the tool inside the selected developer directory. Your own scripts, makefiles, and other tools can also use xcrun(1) to easily lookup tools inside the active developer directory, making it easy to switch them between different versions of the Xcode tools and allowing them to function properly on systems where the Xcode application has been installed to a non-default location.
DEVELOPER_DIR
Overrides the active developer directory. When DEVELOPER_DIR is set, its value will be used instead of the system-wide active developer directory.Note that for historical reason, the developer directory is considered to be the Developer content directory inside the Xcode application (for example /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer). You can set the environment variable to either the actual Developer contents directory, or the Xcode application directory -- the xcode-select provided shims will automatically convert the environment variable into the full Developer content path.
Install the command line developer tools, will prompt to download and install:
xcode-select --install
Select /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer as the active developer directory:
xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
As above, select /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer as the active developer directory. The Developer content directory is automatically inferred by xcode-select:
xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app
Run xcodebuild out of the active developer directory:
/usr/bin/xcodebuild
Use xcrun to locate xcodebuild inside the active developer directory:
/usr/bin/xcrun --find xcodebuild
Execute xcodebuild using an alternate developer directory:
env DEVELOPER_DIR="/Applications/Xcode-beta.app" /usr/bin/xcodebuild
“Rien n'est pareil”
Local man page: xcode-select - Command line help page on your local machine.
pkgutil - Query and manipulate installed packages
sw_vers - Print macOS Operating System version.
xcrun(1)
xcodebuild(1)