Hundreds of targets, same code base in xcode configuration

Question

We are at 400+ targets in xcode. It still works fine but there has to be a better way to set this up by keeping the same code base but not having all those targets which could slow down xcode.

Android Studio lets you update the appname, which loads that folder from disk so only that project is loaded to run and program against. In XCode that is not the case, all targets are available.

It's been years but is there a better way now, with hundreds of targets that doesnt involve Git or Branching? The questions in regards to this are old and only for a few projects, we are talking hundreds here.

Answer 1

Your question lacks enough context to make a specific recommendation but in general...

Use Frameworks

If you can, combine sensible things into a single (or multiple) framework target. Frameworks can be more than fancy wrappers around a dynamic library, they can contain helper tools and such as well.

Use Workspaces

If there is a logical grouping to your existing targets you can separate them out into their own Xcode projects. Once you have them in their own projects you can create a workspace that references those individual projects. Even if the combined workspace loads in everything upfront (I don't think it does tho) you can still open and use the separate projects for a fast and fluid experience when working on the components.

Use static libraries

If you have a ton of targets such that one requires A, B, and C, but another needs B, C, D then you can actually put A, B, C, and D together in a static library and rely on the linker to strip out unused code from each individual target. This obviously does not reduce the number of targets you have, but you can make the static library its own project and include it in a common workspace. This will also speed up compilation as the files only need be compiled once.

Parameterize Targets or Use Schemes

If your targets are simply wrapping some external build tool/script with hardcoded parameters (I've actually seen this) you can actually pass a ton of existing variables from xcode to these external tools and eliminate "duplicate" targets. Similarly you can add new schemes if some of your targets are simply permutations of each other. A good example I've seen of this are people that have a separate target for "sanitized" (address sanitizer, etc) builds you can instead create a sanitization scheme instead of a target.

Use "Script" Build Phases

If some of your targets are doing something such as linting then you can instead employ a script build phase to call the linter instead of having a separate target to do it.

Offload Targets to an External build System

Xcode can have targets that simply call out to an external tool/script using the Script build phase (and using variable parameters as mentioned above). This can make sense to do if you already use another build system (make, cmake, etc) for another platform. Use Xcode only for the Mac/iOS specific targets and offload everything else to a cross platform build system.

If the build system outputs errors in a format Xcode understands it will even show file and line errors the same as native Xcode targets. I've seen people write thin wrappers around external tools to catch parse and reprint errors into such a format.