XCode doesn't recognize environment variables

Question

I use the following script to run XCode (7.0.1 7A1001) on OSX Yosemite 10.10.5:

export FOO=bar #this should not be necessary, but just in case
launchctl setenv FOO bar #should make it visible to all GUI applications (=XCode)
open -a xcode

I then open a workspace with two projects: App1 and App2. In both projects I put $(HOME)/$(FOO) in the Header Search Paths field.

• In App1 it is resolved to /Users/ohads/bar as expected.
• In App2 it is resolved to /Users/ohads/ - note how the HOME variable is resolved, but the FOO variable is not.

What's going on here? Why the discrepancy? How can I make FOO work in App2 - is there some special flag or declaration I'm missing?

BTW, as if that's not weird enough, App1 works even when I only use export (as opposed to launchctl which is what one should use for GUI applications, seeing as export should only affect cash applications).

Answer 1

Looks like this has to do with new XCode 7 behavior. In order for XCode to use environment variables the following command must be issued:

$ defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode UseSanitizedBuildSystemEnvironment -bool NO

Once this command is issued, both export and launchctl work (as per chepner's comment). I can only guess it was working in App1 because it was created in an older XCode version.