What are some good Xcode scripts to speed up development?

Question

Xcode allows you to create automated scripts for performing repetitive tasks. What scripts have you written to speed up development?

Answer 1

Here's one that I found somewhere else that creates @property (copy) and @synthesize property directives for an instance variable. It could use a bit of improvement (say, to let you synthesize multiple variables at once), but it's better than creating them by hand.

Select the instance variable you want to create a property for and activate the script.

If I want a (retain) instead of (copy) I just activate the script and change it to retain manually (it's smart enough to not include the (copy) on primitive types such as int to begin with).

#! /usr/bin/perl -w

#Create property from instance variable

#Entire Document
#Home Directory
#Discard Output
#Display in Alert

use strict;

# Get the header file contents from Xcode user scripts
my $headerFileContents = <<'HEADERFILECONTENTS';
%%%{PBXAllText}%%%
HEADERFILECONTENTS

# Get the indices of the selection from Xcode user scripts
my $selectionStartIndex = %%%{PBXSelectionStart}%%%;
my $selectionEndIndex = %%%{PBXSelectionEnd}%%%;

# Get path of the header file
my $implementationFilePath = "%%%{PBXFilePath}%%%";
my $headerFilePath = $implementationFilePath;

# Look for an implemenation file with a ".m" or ".mm" extension
$implementationFilePath =~ s/\.[hm]*$/.m/;
if (!(-e $implementationFilePath))
{
    $implementationFilePath =~ s/.m$/.mm/;
}

# Handle subroutine to trime whitespace off both ends of a string
sub trim
{
    my $string = shift;
    $string =~ s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/;
    return $string;
}

# Get the selection out of the header file
my $selectedText =  substr $headerFileContents, $selectionStartIndex, ($selectionEndIndex - $selectionStartIndex);
$selectedText = trim $selectedText;

my $type = "";
my $asterisk = "";
my $name = "";
my $behavior = "";

# Test that the selection is:
#  At series of identifiers (the type name and access specifiers)
#  Possibly an asterisk
#  Another identifier (the variable name)
#  A semi-colon
if (length($selectedText) && ($selectedText =~ /([_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*\s*)+([\s\*]+)([_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*);/))
{
    $type = $1;
    $type = trim $type;
    $asterisk = $2;
    $asterisk = trim $asterisk;
    $name = $3;
    $behavior = "";
    if (defined($asterisk) && length($asterisk) == 1)
    {
        $behavior = "(copy) "; #"(nonatomic, retain) ";
    }
    else
    {
        $asterisk = "";
    }
}
else
{
    exit 1;
}

# Find the closing brace (end of the class variables section)
my $remainderOfHeader = substr $headerFileContents, $selectionEndIndex;
my $indexAfterClosingBrace = $selectionEndIndex + index($remainderOfHeader, "\n}\n") + 3;
if ($indexAfterClosingBrace == -1)
{
    exit 1;
}

# Determine if we need to add a newline in front of the property declaration
my $leadingNewline = "\n";
if (substr($headerFileContents, $indexAfterClosingBrace, 1) eq "\n")
{
    $indexAfterClosingBrace += 1;
    $leadingNewline = "";
}

# Determine if we need to add a newline after the property declaration
my $trailingNewline = "\n";
if (substr($headerFileContents, $indexAfterClosingBrace, 9) eq "\@property")
{
    $trailingNewline = "";
}

# Create and insert the propert declaration
my $propertyDeclaration = $leadingNewline . "\@property " . $behavior . $type . " " . $asterisk . $name . ";\n" . $trailingNewline;
substr($headerFileContents, $indexAfterClosingBrace, 0) = $propertyDeclaration;

my $replaceFileContentsScript = <<'REPLACEFILESCRIPT';
on run argv
    set fileAlias to POSIX file (item 1 of argv)
    set newDocText to (item 2 of argv)
    tell application "Xcode"
        set doc to open fileAlias
        set text of doc to newDocText
    end tell
end run
REPLACEFILESCRIPT

# Use Applescript to replace the contents of the header file
# (I could have used the "Output" of the Xcode user script instead)
system 'osascript', '-e', $replaceFileContentsScript, $headerFilePath, $headerFileContents;

# Stop now if the implementation file can't be found
if (!(-e $implementationFilePath))
{
    exit 1;
}

my $getFileContentsScript = <<'GETFILESCRIPT';
on run argv
    set fileAlias to POSIX file (item 1 of argv)
    tell application "Xcode"
        set doc to open fileAlias
        set docText to text of doc
    end tell
    return docText
end run
GETFILESCRIPT

# Get the contents of the implmentation file
open(SCRIPTFILE, '-|') || exec 'osascript', '-e', $getFileContentsScript, $implementationFilePath;
my $implementationFileContents = do {local $/; };
close(SCRIPTFILE);

# Look for the class implementation statement
if (length($implementationFileContents) && ($implementationFileContents =~ /(\@implementation [_A-Za-z][_A-Za-z0-9]*\n)/))
{
    my $matchString = $1;
    my $indexAfterMatch = index($implementationFileContents, $matchString) + length($matchString);

    # Determine if we want a newline before the synthesize statement
    $leadingNewline = "\n";
    if (substr($implementationFileContents, $indexAfterMatch, 1) eq "\n")
    {
        $indexAfterMatch += 1;
        $leadingNewline = "";
    }

    # Determine if we want a newline after the synthesize statement
    $trailingNewline = "\n";
    if (substr($implementationFileContents, $indexAfterMatch, 11) eq "\@synthesize")
    {
        $trailingNewline = "";
    }

    # Create and insert the synthesize statement 
    my $synthesizeStatement = $leadingNewline . "\@synthesize " . $name . ";\n" . $trailingNewline;
    substr($implementationFileContents, $indexAfterMatch, 0) = $synthesizeStatement;

    # Use Applescript to replace the contents of the implementation file in Xcode
    system 'osascript', '-e', $replaceFileContentsScript, $implementationFilePath, $implementationFileContents;
}

exit 0;