How to configure independent sets of runtime settings in Xcode

Question

My iPhone application connects to three different servers, say: production, staging and testing. There is a bunch of confi

Answer 1

A good way to do this would be with build configurations and C macros. This avoids having to create a separate target for every configuration which is not really the correct use of targets.

First you want to set up the configurations at the project level:

You can create different configurations for debugging, enterprise distribution, and any other type of special build you want.

Next you can define some macro flags for each configuration which will be passed to the compiler. You can then check for these flags at compile time. Find the "Preprocessor flags" build setting at the target level:

If you expand the triangle you can define different values for each of your configurations. You can define KEY=VALUE or just KEY macros here.

In your code, you can check for the existance of these macros, or their value (if there is one). For example:

#ifdef DISABLE_FEATURE_X
    featureXButton.hidden = YES;
#endif

// ...

#if FOOBAR_VISIBLE == 0
    foobarView.hidden = YES;
#elif FOOBAR_VISIBLE == 1
    foorbarView.hidden = NO;
#else
    #error Invalid value for FOOBAR_VISIBLE
#endif

You can pass in string values as well, which must be wrapped with single quotes in the build setting, e.g. DEFAULT_LOCALIZATION_NAME='@"en"'.

You can also configure which configuration is used during Debug and Archive time using the Schemes editor. If you choose "Run" or "Archive" in the Schemes editor you can select the appropriate configuration.

If you need to parameterize entries in the Info.plist file, you can define their value using a custom build setting. Add a custom build setting for your target:

And then give it an appropriate value for your different configurations:

Then in the Info.plist file you can reference this setting:

Note that the one limitation of this approach is that you cannot change the following items:

• Settings.bundle

Additionally, in older versions of Xcode without asset catalog support, you cannot change the following items:

• Icon.png
• Default.png

These cannot be explicitly defined in the Info.plist file or anywhere else, which means you need different targets to change them.

Hope this helps.