Organization + Clean Up Tips for iOS Developers

29th January 2017 | Programming

The following are a collection of useful tips and tricks I've developed over the past year to help keep things neat and tidy in my development environment.

Free up space taken by Xcode

The problem: Xcode is a huge space hog, not only in the size of the app, but with all of the detritus which is left about from old archives, simulators, and derived data. This often results in my work computer displaying low space warnings.

Clean up old local git branches

The problem: Without regular maintenance, your local git repository will become a cluttered mess of old branches. Before cleaning your local git branches, your repository might look like this:


$ git branch --merged
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1000
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1007
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1015
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1026
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1057
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1058
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1060
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1061
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1062
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1099
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1106
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1132
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1139
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1141
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1151
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1155
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1157
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1168
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1172
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1181
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1206
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1242
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-1250
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-953
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-997
  Bugfix/FOOBAR-998
* develop
  feature/FOOBAR-1200
  feature/FOOBAR-142
  feature/FOOBAR-215
  feature/FOOBAR-221
  feature/FOOBAR-241
  feature/FOOBAR-242
  feature/FOOBAR-261
  feature/FOOBAR-277
  feature/FOOBAR-287
  feature/FOOBAR-778
  feature/FOOBAR-798
  feature/FOOBAR-896
  feature/FOOBAR-90
  feature/FOOBAR-90-merge
  feature/FOOBAR-906
  feature/FOOBAR-960
  feature/stores/search
  master

Using a git/grep/xargs concoction, you can quickly clean this up. Delete all local merged branches, except for the branches named master or develop.

git branch --merged | grep -v '\*\|master\|develop' | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

This will result in local branches being deleted, with output similar to this:


Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1000 (was ab382ed).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1007 (was 493b17b).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1015 (was e7e1f6a).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1026 (was 19b6d62).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1057 (was 8f06d42).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1058 (was e285fde).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1060 (was 96318b5).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1061 (was a84bcac).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1062 (was 2b7310c).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1099 (was 8260dd0).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1106 (was cf401f2).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1132 (was 4af883c).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1139 (was 3f89c9b).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1141 (was 13763d0).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1151 (was 6ca43c4).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1155 (was b020c21).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1157 (was 903dee7).
Deleted branch Bugfix/FOOBAR-1168 (was abb20b6).
.
.
.

Perform one more check to ensure that your local repository has been cleaned up:


$ git branch --merged
* develop
  feature/FOOBAR-242
  master

synx — Organize an Xcode project's file system

The problem: The file system structure of your project does not match up to the project's Xcode structure. If not properly handled early on in a project's life cycle, the organization between the project and it's matching file system will quickly become out of sync and result in a massive dump of unorganized files.

The idea to write a script seemed like a good weekend project, but fortunately this problem has already been solved. Enter synx, a command-line tool that reorganizes your Xcode project folder to match your Xcode groups.

To install: gem install synx

To run: synx /path/to/project.xcodeproj

...and viola!...er...ah....Voilá! No more unorganized file system structure.

Taking a simulator screenshot from the command line

The problem: As of Xcode 8, trying to take a screenshot of the iOS simulator using the keyboard shortcut ⌘-S will result in the simulator crashing. This issue occurs only with OS X El Capitan and Xcode 8, but not with macOS Sierra and Xcode 8.

From the command line, run: xcrun simctl io booted screenshot

I created a small shell script named tss.sh (short for Take Simulator Screenshot) which switches to the Desktop, takes the screenshot of the running simulator, saves the picture to the Desktop, then switches back to the original directory. I then created an alias so I only need to type tss from the Terminal to take a screenshot.

To make this even easier, create an Automator Workflow service to run the shell script and then attach a keyboard shortcut to it. This method circumvents event needing to go to the command line to call the script. Press ⇧-⌘-5 and a screenshot is taken of the simulator.


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