xccache

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✍🏼 Case Study: Using XCCache in Kickstarter iOS Project

Let’s try this xccache tool with the Kickstarter iOS project.

I forked the project to trinhngocthuyen/kickstarter-ios. Check out the branch try/xccache for the detailed integration.

Following are the steps needed for the integration.

Step 1. Add xccache to Gemfile

Then, run bundle install to have it installed.

Step 2. [Optional] Using existing remote cache

Specify the git repo for the cache in xccache.yml.

remote:
  default:
    git: https://github.com/trinhngocthuyen/.cache.git

Then, pull the cache from the given repo:

bundle exec xccache remote pull

Now, the cache should be available in ~/.xccache/debug.

$  tree ~/.xccache/debug -L 2

/Users/thuyen/.xccache/debug
├── Alamofire
│   └── Alamofire-513364f8.xcframework
├── AlamofireImage
│   └── AlamofireImage-1eaf3b6.xcframework
├── Apollo
│   └── Apollo-5db23797b.xcframework
├── ApolloAPI
│   └── ApolloAPI-5db23797b.xcframework
├── ApolloUtils
│   └── ApolloUtils-5db23797b.xcframework
├── AppboyKit
│   └── AppboyKit-a3511ca.xcframework
├── AppboySegment
│   └── AppboySegment-dc659b7.xcframework
├── AppboyUI
│   └── AppboyUI-a3511ca.xcframework

Step 3. Run bundle exec xccache to integrate the cache

There are some highlighting changes as follows:

• A new file: xccache.lock that captures the dependencies in the project.
• Changes in xcodeproj files (see: here):
  • A special package (xccache/packages/umbrella) is added
  • Packages and their product dependencies are removed from xcodeproj. Don’t worry, you can still use those products though.

Step 4. Trigger “Resolve Package Versions”

Tip: You should trigger this after running xccache command because Xcode doesn’t auto-resolve dependencies upon changes in xccache’s package manifest.

Step 5. Try a clean build

And observe the build time when having cache. The observed buid time on my Macbook Air (M1, 2020) is just nearly 2 minutes 🎉.

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