Unable to use xcodebuild on Mavericks with Command Line Tools installed

93
votes

I have installed the Command Line Tools:

$ xcode-select --print-path
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

However, when anything tries to use xcodebuild, I get the following error:

$ /usr/bin/xcodebuild
xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance

On Mountain Lion it was possible to use this without installing the whole of Xcode, rather just the Command Line Tools. Is it possible to do this on Mavericks? How can I get it working?

N.B. This is on a clean install of Mavericks.

Update: just to show, I do have the Command Line Tools installed:

$ gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 5.0 (clang-500.2.79) (based on LLVM 3.3svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.0.0
Thread model: posix
9
xcodemacosoperating-systemosx-mavericks
Running into the same problem here trying to build some node modules. Hopefully a quick workaround is available. - rossipedia
I created an issue on node-gyp as that's the source of my problem: github.com/TooTallNate/node-gyp/issues/341 - user1082754
Maybe you have to install Xcode. Thats how my gcc --version looks like Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.9.sdk/usr/include/c++/4.2.1 Apple LLVM version 5.0 (clang-500.2.79) (based on LLVM 3.3svn) Target: x86_64-apple-darwin13.0.0 Thread model: posix - Martin Christmann
Maybe you are right, just odd that it wasn't necessary on Mountain Lion with Command Line Tools installed. - user1082754
I assume you did xcode-select --install. With Xcode installed xcode-select --print-path prints /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer - mb21

9 Answers

65
votes

I know that this is a late answer, but in my case this command solved the issue:

sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
23
votes

It appears that OSX has changed xcodebuild to require XCode to be installed, where before it functioned properly with only the OSX Command Line Tools installed.

Old semi-related answer

Many people ran into this with Node. Node's build tool, gyp, uses xcodebuild to prepare for compiling node packages. Mavericks has changed the behavior of xcodebuild so that it no longer works properly with gyp. This is being fixed at the moment. See the node-gyp issue

Once the changes have been deployed to NPM, you will be able to install the new node-gyp package and compile properly. You will also need to update your NPM version once the changes are incorporated into NPM.

16
votes

Please first go to finder, next select Applications from left panel, next look for Xcode, and check if its name is Xcode or Xcode-Beta

If name is Xcode-Beta then enter this command in Terminal:

sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode-Beta.app/Contents/Developer

If name is Xcode then enter this command:

sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Hope this answer might help for users with Beta version of Xcode

Thanks

9
votes

This issue was due to xcode-select developer directory pointing to /Library/Developer, which only contained the folder CommandLineTools. To this end, the error message is complaining about not the directory not being the same as Xcode.

Two tested solutions:

  1. (Re) Install Xcode.

  2. Point xcode-select to the Xcode Developer Directory using the following command:

    sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

References:

How to fix error like “xcode-select: error: tool ‘xcodebuild’ requires Xcode, but active developer directory * BROKEN LINK *

xcode-select active developer directory error

2
votes

I reinstalled Xcode from App Store which solved this issue. I guess my previous installation is not complete install

1
votes

There's also a GUI to change the Command Line Tools path in Xcode > Preferences > Locations:

Xcode > Preferences > Locations

I just had this issue after upgrading to Xcode 10.3 while keeping an older copy of 10.2.1 in a sub-folder in Applications. When I opened this Locations panel the selection for Command Line Tools was blank, but I was able to choose between the two versions installed:

Command Line Tools selection dropdown

I tend to go with the GUI option if it's available instead of copying in sudo commands from SO.

0
votes

If you use XCode2: sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode\ 2.app/Contents/Developer

Pay attention to the "\" to escape the space.

0
votes

Today I had this issue and the problem was I was using a manual install of xcode and had the file named Xcode8.3.2.app instead of Xcode.app. Renaming the app fixed the issue of xcode-select complaining. This seems to indicate the regular appname is on its search path but variants are not.

-3
votes

AFAIK, command line tools in Mavericks are installed into /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer which tends to imply that Xcode is required. Undocumented feature probably.