How to update Xcode Command Line Tools?

Question

I am trying to update Command line tools on my mac osx.

~  softwareupdate --list Software Update Tool Copyright 2002-2015 Apple Inc.  Finding available software Software Update found the following new or updated software:        * Command Line Tools (macOS El Capitan version 10.11) for Xcode-8.2     Command Line Tools (macOS El Capitan version 10.11) for Xcode (8.2), 150374K [recommended]    * iTunesX-12.5.5     iTunes (12.5.5), 263476K [recommended] 

But when I run the update command, I get this error:

softwareupdate -i Command Line Tools (macOS El Capitan version 10.11) for Xcode-8.2 zsh: number expected 

This doesn't work either:

softwareupdate -i Command Line Tools Software Update Tool Copyright 2002-2015 Apple Inc.  Command: No such update Line: No such update Tools: No such update No updates are available. 

What specific string should I specify after sofwareupdate -i command?

Answer 1

For future travelers, here's a version-agnostic approach. First, run softwareupdate --list. This will probably take a couple of minutes. When it's done, you'll see a bulleted (with an asterisk) output like this:

$ softwareupdate --list Software Update Tool  Finding available software Software Update found the following new or updated software:    * Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode-10.1         Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode (10.1), 190584K [recommended] 

Find the bullet that refers to the Xcode command line tools. Copy that entire line (except the asterisk...). In the above case, you would copy: Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode-10.1

Then, run the install command (as shown by Brendan Shanks) with what you copied inside quotes:

softwareupdate -i "Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode-10.1" 

Answer 2

I'm going to answer a slightly different question here, because this question came up when I searched for a solution to my problem. Hopefully it'll help someone (and it'll surely help me next time I run into the same issue).

I wanted to upgrade the command line tools from version 8 to 9. The App Store didn't suggest this upgrade, and neither did softwareupdate --list.

xcode-select --install 

installed the new version of the tools. But clang --version still gave 8.0.0 as the version number. xcode-select -r and rebooting didn't solve this issue.

xcode-select -p returned /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer, and clang --version reported an installation directory under there. I thought I'd start over again.

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Xcode.app 

deleted version 8 of the tools. But xcode-select --install said the command line tools were already installed.

sudo xcode-select -r 

Now, sudo xcode-select -p returns /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/.

It seems that the problem was that the new version of the tools are installed to a different directory, and xcode-select -r is not clever enough to find the latest version.