appium-xcode

What is appium-xcode?

The appium-xcode npm package provides utilities for interacting with Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment for macOS. It is particularly useful for managing Xcode installations, simulators, and other related tasks programmatically, which is essential for automated testing and continuous integration workflows.

What are appium-xcode's main functionalities?

Get Xcode Version

This feature allows you to retrieve the current version of Xcode installed on your system. It is useful for ensuring compatibility and debugging issues related to specific Xcode versions.

const xcode = require('appium-xcode');
xcode.getVersion().then(version => {
  console.log(`Xcode version: ${version}`);
});

Get Path to Xcode

This feature provides the file system path to the Xcode installation. This can be useful for scripts that need to interact with Xcode directly.

const xcode = require('appium-xcode');
xcode.getPath().then(path => {
  console.log(`Xcode path: ${path}`);
});

Get Available Simulators

This feature lists all the available iOS simulators on your system. It is useful for automated testing setups where you need to select or manage simulators programmatically.

const xcode = require('appium-xcode');
xcode.getSimulators().then(simulators => {
  console.log('Available simulators:', simulators);
});

Other packages similar to appium-xcode

node-simctl

The node-simctl package provides a Node.js wrapper around the simctl command-line tool, which is used to control iOS simulators. While appium-xcode offers broader functionality related to Xcode, node-simctl focuses specifically on simulator management.

ios-deploy

The ios-deploy package allows you to launch iOS apps on a device from the command line. It is useful for deploying and testing apps on physical devices, whereas appium-xcode is more focused on Xcode and simulator management.

xcpretty

The xcpretty package is a fast and flexible formatter for xcodebuild output. It is used to make the output of Xcode builds more readable and easier to parse. While appium-xcode deals with various aspects of Xcode, xcpretty is specifically aimed at improving build output readability.

README

appium-xcode

ES7 module for interacting with Xcode and Xcode-related functions. Used by Appium

API

All functions are async, meaning they return promises which can be awaited via await.

Most functions are memoized, so after they are called once, they will simply return the same value. Remember that calling require() multiple times returns the same instantiation of a module if it has already been instantiated, so the memoization will be preserved across multiple files in the same project.

Some functions have an auto-retry built into them, they will retry silently a number of times. This is because the Xcode commands sometimes just flake and return bad values (or don't return).

To clear the memoized values, call clearInternalCache

getPath()

memoized

gets path to Xcode

getVersion([num_retries])

memoized, retry

returns the version of Xcode. Returns strings like '6.3.1'

getAutomationTraceTemplatePath([num_retries])

*memoized, retry

returns a path to the default AutomationTraceTemplate

getAutomationTraceTemplatePathWithoutRetry()

same as getAutomationTraceTemplatePath() but without retry or memoization.

getMaxIOSSDK([num_retries])

memoized, retry

returns largest IOS SDK version supported by Xcode. eg: '8.3'

getMaxIOSSDKWithoutRetry()

same as getMaxIOSDK() but without retry or memoization

getMaxTVOSSDK([num_retries])

memoized, retry

returns largest tvOS SDK version supported by Xcode. eg: '10.1'

getMaxTVOSSDKWithoutRetry()

same as getMaxTVOSSDK() but without retry or memoization

clearInternalCache()

clears the internal cache used for memoizing functions.

Develop

Test

npm test
npm e2e-test

Debug

After cloning appium-xcode, execute npm link in the appium-xcode directory. Next run npm link appium-xcode from the appium directory. This will symlink appium-xcode to node_modules/appium-xcode. If the clone becomes out of date remember to unlink or delete node_modules and reinstall.

For quick debugging you could cd into the node_modules/appium-xcode folder and run npm install followed by npm run build.