Inside the iOS build process

The iPhone/iPad application build process is a two step process:

1. XCode project is generated with all the required libraries, precompiled .NET code and serialized assets.
2. XCode project is built and deployed on the actual device.

When “Build” is hit on “Build settings” dialog only the first step is accomplished. Hitting “Build and Run” performs both steps. If in the project save dialog the user selects an already existing folder an alert is displayed. Currently there are two XCode project generation modes to select:

• replace - all the files from target folder are removed and the new content is generated
• append - the “Data”, “Libraries” and project root folder are cleaned and filled with newly generated content. The XCode project file is updated according to the latest Unity project changes. XCode project “Classes” subfolder could be considered as safe place to place custom native code, but making regular backups is recommended. Append mode is supported only for the existing XCode projects generated with the same Unity iOS version.

If Cmd+B is hit then the automatic build and run process is invoked and the latest used folder is assumed as the build target. In this case append mode is assumed as default.