I'm trying to figure out what the Versioning settings (such as MARKETING_VERSION, CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION, etc) under the PROJECT / BUILD SETTINGS tab do.
The version numbers embedded in the binary, etc. seem to be taken from the TARGETS / BUILD SETTINGS tab, which beg the question regarding the PROJECT settings.
I ended up down this rabbit hole because I wanted to automate my versioning settings, but agvtool doesn't work with things like the standard macos app template because agvtool seems to assume an Info.plist file (from what I can tell). I suspect I'll have to parse the project.pbxproj file.
Running Xcode 14.0 beta 2.
MARKETING_VERSION (CFBundleShortVersionString in Info.plist): https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/build-settings-reference#Marketing-Version
CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION (CFBundleVersion in Info.plist): https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/build-settings-reference#Current-Project-Version
CFBundleShortVersionString: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/cfbundleshortversionstring
CFBundleVersion: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/cfbundleversion (important for App Store updates)
Targets inherit from project settings so you could just set the CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION and MARKETING_VERSION in the project, delete the target specific build settings and each target will then use the project settings.
Customised / Levels at the top left of build settings helps to see what is customised or inherited in each target.
You can also use build configuration files to specify build settings for the project or specific targets / configurations which are often easier for scripts to update, avoiding any parsing of project.pbxproj files: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/adding-a-build-configuration-file-to-your-project
eg setting the following project.xcconfig for all configurations (and removing CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION / MARKETING_VERSION from the project / target build settings) will use the xconfig versions for all targets:
project.xcconfig
CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION = 1.0.0
MARKETING_VERSION = 1.0
You can also reference custom build settings just like any other build setting. eg $(MY_CUSTOM_BUILD_SETTING)
One of my projects uses xcconfig to manage custom TOOLS_OWNED / HELPER_AUTHORISED_CLIENTS (SMPrivilegedExecutables / SMAuthorizedClients) build settings for multiple targets and debug / release / distribution configurations as an alternative to SMJobBlessUtil-python3.py updating Info.plist files.
