Automating iPhone releases with Rake
So far for me the release process for "Squeemote":http://lukeredpath.co.uk/squeemote has been fairly manual. After checking the final release several times using a development build, then an ad-hoc build, the time would come to create a distribution build. I've done this several times now and each time I've gone through the same tedious steps so I thought it's time I wrote myself a "Rake":http://rake.rubyforge.org task to automate the process somewhat. If you're a Ruby/Rails developer you will no doubt have Rake installed. Otherwise, with Ruby installed (which you should have as it ships with Leopard) then you can install the latest version of Rake using the commandgem install rake. If you're not familiar with Rake, to use this task, create a file named Rakefile in the root of your project and add the code below. To run it, simply execute rake release from a Terminal.
The Rake task is still in it's infancy but I will continue to update the "gist":http://gist.github.com as I make further improvements. It performs the following steps:
# Bumps the build number using "agvtool":http://is.gd/llGp (see "this article on using agvtool":http://chanson.livejournal.com/125568.html)
# Builds the release using my main target and by default the Development distribution
# Creates a folder in my saved releases folder and copies the built package (and the dsym file) to the release folder.
# Compresses the package into a zip file ready for uploading to Apple.
RELEASE_OUTPUT_PATH = File.expand_path(
"~/Projects/releases/Squeemote")
TARGET_NAME = "Squeemote"
CONFIGURATION = ENV['CONFIGURATION'] || "Distribution"
SDK_VERSION = ENV['SDK'] || 'iphoneos2.2'
task :release do
puts "* Bumping build version."
`agvtool bump -all`
puts "* Building #{CONFIGURATION} release."
`xcodebuild -target #{TARGET_NAME} \
-configuration #{CONFIGURATION} -sdk #{SDK_VERSION}`
build_path = File.join('build', "#{CONFIGURATION}-iphoneos")
puts "* Creating #{CONFIGURATION} package"
output_path = File.join(RELEASE_OUTPUT_PATH,
`agvtool mvers -terse1`.strip + "-#{CONFIGURATION.downcase}")
`rm -Rf #{output_path}` if File.exist?(output_path)
`mkdir #{output_path} && \
mv #{File.join(build_path, '*')} #{output_path}`
puts "* Compressing."
`cd #{output_path} && zip -ry \
#{TARGET_NAME}.zip #{TARGET_NAME}.app`
puts "* Done."
end