install Xcode from terminal

xcode-install-instructions.md

1. Download Xcode from https://developer.apple.com/download/more/ (this requeires to Login in with an Apple Developer Account)

At the moment id don´t know how to authenticate so i have no clue to download the xip via curl/wget.
In my case i downloaded the file and copied it via scp to my mac.

eg. for Xcode 9.2 https://developer.apple.com/services-account/download?path=/Developer_Tools/Xcode_9.2/Xcode_9.2.xip

2. Verify Signature of xip file

pkgutil --verbose --check-signature path/to/xip

eg. pkgutil --verbose --check-signature Xcode_9.2.xip

3. Extract the PBZX stream from the archive

xar -xf path/to/xip

eg. xar -xf Xcode_9.2.xip

4. Obtain a PBZX v2 unpacker and... unpack the packed stuff.

curl -O https://gist.githubusercontent.com/pudquick/ff412bcb29c9c1fa4b8d/raw/24b25538ea8df8d0634a2a6189aa581ccc6a5b4b/parse_pbzx2.py
python parse_pbzx2.py Content

5. Decompress the archive

Locate all Concent.partXX.cpio.xz file with more than 0Bytes and decompress them

xz -d Content.partXX.cpio.xz

6. Concat decompressed cpio files

for i in *.cpio; do cat $i >> Content.cpio; done

7. Unpack cpio

sudo cpio -idm < Content.cpio

8. Move Xcode to /Applications

sudo mv ./Xcode.app /Applications/

cat Concent.partXX.cpio >> Content.cpio is wrong
cat Content.partXX.cpio >> Content.cpio is OK
IN https://gist.github.com/nekator/fdf046b834e3221555db252e5120b622#6-concat-decompressed-cpio-files

cat Concent.partXX.cpio >> Content.cpio is wrong
cat Content.partXX.cpio >> Content.cpio is OK
IN https://gist.github.com/nekator/fdf046b834e3221555db252e5120b622#6-concat-decompressed-cpio-files

Changed it. Thanks.

I just came here to thank you so much !!
You're awesome, I've been trying to install xcode on my mac and always failed for more than week, but after trying your commands xcode worked! So thank you again !
Xcode 8 on MacOs High sierra 10.13.6

For the above process, user need to make sure he has enough space( at least twice to the xcode size) as we are extracting the Content and packaging it back.

@YogiKhan you are absolutely 💯 correct.

BTW I would like to mention https://docs.fastlane.tools/actions/xcode_install/ for headless installation of XCode which is my preferred method right now.

On step 6 simply use for i in *.cpio; do cat $i >> Content.cpio; done

On step 6 simply use for i in *.cpio; do cat $i >> Content.cpio; done

Thanks for this great addition. Changed it in the gist 👍

THIS was the only working solution for me.
The system volume of my mac mini has less than 30gb free space, so no app store install would work.
On my second HDD I've got plenty of free space, but the Archive Utility always bloads my system volume until Mac Os crashed.

https://gist.github.com/dcondrey/fec86d6ecedaf37c622cc4d9ba5c5413

https://gist.github.com/dcondrey/fec86d6ecedaf37c622cc4d9ba5c5413

This is a pretty elegant way using mas.
👍

Thank you very much, it worked perfectly !!

Got an error on pre-last step. I tried to unpack XCode 12.5.1. At step 5 I replaced command xz -d Content.partXX.cpio.xz to catch all .cpio file with -> xz -d Content.part*.cpio.xz. Is it true? @nekator

@ClebsonDantasUchoa @dcondrey @pechisworks @mtrimarchi @ykhandelwal913 @iSemary @demiansc help pliz

Use this - https://github.com/xcpretty/xcode-install

gem install xcode-install
xcversion list
// grab the latest

xcversion update

@nekator for step 5 Locate all Concent.partXX.cpio.xz file with more than 0Bytes and decompress them I think this find command could be useful, thank you for the instructions btw 🤩

find . -type f -name 'Content.part*.cpio.xz' -size +0 -exec xz -d {} \;

I've created the following script to get the download urls for the selected Xcode versions.

alias xcode.download.link='curl -s https://xcodereleases.com/data.json | jq -r '\''.[] | (.name + ": " + .version.number + " (" + .version.build + ") " + (.version.release | to_entries[] | "\(.key) \(.value)"))'\'' | fzf -m --no-sort | awk -F'\''[()]'\'' '\''{print $2}'\'' | while read build; do { curl -s https://xcodereleases.com/data.json | jq -r ".[] | select(.version.build | contains(\"${build}\")) | .links.download.url" } done'

After a little search, I end up with a convenient solution.

Step 4.

brew install pbxz

Step 5.

pbxz -n Content | tar -x -v

Step 6.

Copy the Xcode.app and Enjoy it 😄

What is pbxz? Do you have any links?

@Gerst20051 install it via Homebrew brew install pbxz

What is pbxz? Do you have any links?

Jonathan Levin pbzx to properly unpack pbzx chunks and pipe the output to tar

Is that in a tap? I don't see it on homebrew.

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/pbxz
https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/pbxz

Ohhh I see you have a typo in your first comment. It is pbzx not pbxz.

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/pbzx
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/pbzx.rb
https://github.com/NiklasRosenstein/pbzx
https://github.com/NiklasRosenstein/pbzx/blob/master/pbzx.c