Apple Command Line Tools AND XCode For Open Source Compile/Build? - xcode

I don't use XCode but have it "left over" from when it was the path to installing the Apple Command Line Tools - which I do use for compiling/building other software. I now seem to have both XCode and Apple Command Line Tools and don't really care to continue updating XCode every few months (huge download).
My 2 questions before deleting XCode:
Will Apple Command Line Tools remain on my machine and usable for open source build/compile if I trash XCode?
Will I lose some useful functionality I don't know about elsewhere (if I really never do use XCode)?
Question 2.5: Is this a safe delete?
This post was similar but unanswered.
Thanks!

Xcode is required when building MacVim from Homebrew. The Command Line Tools alone are insufficient. I reinstalled Xcode...

Related

Is there any xCode alternatives for homebrew?

For Homebrew to work I need to download xCode, but I do not want to download a 40+ gigabyte app. Is there any alternatives for xCode I could use.
You do not need a "full" Xcode installation.
hoembrew requires the Xcode command line tools which could be downloaded from Apple directly.
https://developer.apple.com/download/all/?q=command%20line%20tools
By the way, Xcode should be around 10GB not 40. :)

Qt without Xcode

Is it possible to use Qt and Qt Creator on MacOS with Command Line Tools only, i.e. without installing the whole Xcode?
I'm asking because I'm getting "Project ERROR: Could not resolve SDK Path for 'macosx'" and all the solutions I read ask for full Xcode.
I had the same question when I wanted to install Qt on an old MacBook Air that can't run the version of macOS that XCode now requires.
I found this document detailing how to install Qt without XCode.
It does complain about XCode not being present, but as the document notes you can ignore that and proceed anyway.
(Note: solution didn't solve my problem for a couple obscure reasons, but I'm leaving the answer because it is an additional option not yet mentioned.)

Uninstall xcode but keep other dependencies

I do not work on iOS or OSX apps, but I do a fair amount of other development. Therefore, I need to keep things like python, gcc, etc. How can I uninstall the xcode app without removing these other things?
How can I uninstall the xcode app without removing these other things?
First point to note is that python comes pre-installed on your mac and can be interacted with independently of Xcode.
You delete the Xcode application from your applications folder (/Applications) and leave the developer tools in place. This would leave the command line tools in place, you could call this a bit of a hack.
location of command line tools:
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/
Completely remove Xcode and command line tools and use a package manager tool like HomeBrew to install the tools you require.

How can I install Xcode 6 along side Xcode 5?

I was wondering if there is a way that I could install Xcode 6 along side Xcode 5. I've seen people say you could but they haven't really explained why. Can someone help to explain why? Also, how would you uninstall it if I wished to in the future?
It's simple. The Xcode 6 beta is named Xcode6-beta.app and you drag install it into /Applications. The GM version of Xcode is called Xcode.app. If you need to switch the command line tools you use xcode-select. Nothing has changed here. It's the same as it's been. When you want to "uninstall" it, drag it to the trash. It's that simple.
You can also change the default command line tools via GUI, if you prefer: XCode > Preferences > Locations, Dropdown "Command Line Tools"...
Attention, you can effectively install Xcode 6 and keep Xcode 5 but this is not working perfectly fine. For example this broke my Xcode 5 IOS6 simulators and I am now unable to run my apps on this old ios version (see here)
I didn't find any solution for now and there may be others problems, so be aware this operation is not without risks
You might be far better off creating a partition with OSX Yosemite and installing Beta Software there. I moved over my apps to the Yosemite partition and only the Xcode 6 Beta 4 ran them - yeah!
Here is where I will work with untested software.
Good luck!

GCC without Xcode on OS X

I've just unwrapped my new MacBook Pro (yay!) and am now setting it up properly for development. Since I want to avoid clutter, I'm wondering if I really need to install the Xcode tools at all (I never use the IDE or Mac specific tools), since I'll install a newer version of GCC anyway, using MacPorts.
So, is there any benefit in installing Xcode? Is it necessary? What kind of set-up does it do behind the scenes? Basically: can I skip this or will it come back to haunt me because some Unix development tools just assume that OS X is always set up in this way?
In order to perform an easy and successful install of MacPorts, already having tools from the xCode installer is necessary. You only need the install option that places a copy of the unix/header files outside of xcode; everything else can remain uninstalled.
A friend of mine recently released this:
https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer
Have fun :)
I tried this trick and I was constantly chasing missing header files and such. Just install XCode.
We primarily use the Xcode IDE for building Cocoa/Carbon applications. Xcode typically has different project templates (and project settings fixed accordingly). As long as you are not going to generate a Universal Binary or a framework I think you should be ok. As far as I am concerned, when I am too pissed with Xcode, I go back to the command line, set up the paths myself and start using GDB.
First of all, congratulations on the new MBP. I recently bought a 15" unibody myself. =)
You can safely skip Xcode installation, and you can install almost everything Xcode installs through MacPorts, except Xcode itself, of course.
However, I believe you'll find yourself installing Xcode one day anyway, and installing Xcode is much easier than installing all the tools (especially GCC) through MacPorts.
You can strip down the Xcode install quite a lot - when you install Xcode there is a "Customise" button where you can remove a lot of stuff (gigabytes worth).
You can also go in and delete stuff from /Developer/, for example the 10.3 SDK is about 150MB (I think), and if you're not writing software for that it's quite safe to delete. Obviously be careful when deleting, but if you break things, you can always reinstall the Developer Tools!
Apple now provides the command line tools as a separate download from Xcode. They work with Lion and Mountain Lion. You can download them from the Apple Developer Center.
(This is noted on the osx-gcc-installer GitHub page.)

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