macOS
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brew install xcdifflocal Homebrew formula metadata
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Install xcdiff with Homebrew
Tool to diff xcodeproj files. Version 0.14.0 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.
install
Additional install commands
overview
Package summary
Tool to diff xcodeproj files
Project links
Commands and aliases
- xcdiff
history
Project history and usage
xcdiff is Bloomberg's Swift-based tool for comparing Xcode project files. Its README describes it as an extensible "git diff for .xcodeproj files", usable both as a command-line program and as a library for custom tools.
Project history
The project appeared publicly in the Xcode project-generation era, when teams increasingly used tools such as XcodeGen and Tuist to generate .xcodeproj files rather than editing them entirely by hand. Swift Package Index records xcdiff's first public release, 0.2.0, on 22 October 2019, and the GitHub releases page shows continued maintenance through the 0.14.0 release in September 2025.
xcdiff builds on other Swift/Xcode infrastructure instead of parsing project files in isolation. The README credits Tuist's XcodeProj library and Swift Package Manager's utility library, which places xcdiff in the same small ecosystem of tools that inspect, generate, or normalize Xcode project metadata.
Adoption history
The project is niche by design: it is aimed at teams that need to compare two generated or hand-maintained Xcode projects in a meaningful way. Swift Package Index lists xcdiff as an active package with one executable, two libraries, and roughly a thousand GitHub stars, indicating modest but real use among Swift and Apple-platform tooling users.
How it is used
The canonical workflow is to run `xcdiff` in a directory containing two .xcodeproj files, or to pass two project paths explicitly with `-p1` and `-p2`. The README's main use case is migration to project generation: compare a generated project against the original one and inspect differences in targets, sources, headers, and related project structure.
Beyond the CLI, xcdiff exposes XCDiffCore as a Swift Package Manager dependency. That makes it useful for package-nerd workflows where a team wants project-file comparison inside another migration, review, or CI tool rather than only as terminal output.
Why package nerds care
Xcode projects are serialized as large property-list-like graphs, so ordinary text diffs are noisy and often misleading. xcdiff matters in its niche because it treats the project file as structured data, which helps teams review generated-project changes without hand-reading unstable .pbxproj ordering and identifiers.
Timeline
- 2019-10-22: Swift Package Index records xcdiff 0.2.0 as the first public release.
- 2021-01-22: xcdiff 0.6.0 adds additional comparators, including Swift Package and project attributes.
- 2025-09-08: GitHub releases list xcdiff 0.14.0 as a current release.
Related projects
- XcodeGen and Tuist are named by the README as project-generation tools whose output can be checked with xcdiff.
- Tuist's XcodeProj library is credited by xcdiff and provides the underlying Xcode project modeling used in the wider Swift tooling ecosystem.
Sources
security posture
Risk level: green
narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.
Risk classifier
green risk · low confidence · appliance
Why
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals
Signals
- metadata:no-higher-risk-signals
Install behavior
- No Homebrew post-install hook is recorded in formula metadata.
- Homebrew bottle metadata is available for 6 platform targets.
Recommended review
Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.
executables
Installed executables
| Command | Kind | Exposure | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
xcdiff | cli | global executable |
freshness
Version and freshness
These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.
page generated2026-07-08
manager version0.14.0
manager updated
local dataok
upstreamnot checked
latest detectednot detected
https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiff
- infoNo package-manager update timestamp was available.low confidence
- infoNo cached GitHub release or tag data was available.https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiffnone confidence
install metadata
Package metadata
| Package key | brew:xcdiff |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.14.0 |
| Package manager | Homebrew |
| Package manager page | https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/xcdiff |
| Homepage | https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiff |
| Repository | https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiff |
| Upstream docs | https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiff#readme |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Source archive | https://github.com/bloomberg/xcdiff.git |
| Bottle | available (on arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, arm64_ventura, sonoma, ventura) |
| Homebrew post-install | not defined |
| Service | none declared |
registry facts
Source database details
| Source Database | Homebrew formula API |
|---|---|
| Tap | homebrew/core |
| Full Name | xcdiff |
| Version Scheme | 0 |
| Revision | 0 |
| Head Version | HEAD |
| Requirements |
|
| Bottle Stable Root URL | https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core |
| Deprecated | no |
| Disabled | no |
| Keg Only | no |
| URL Keys |
|
source trail
Generated from repository data
This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.
Combined YAML source
View the package source record on GitHub.
Used sources
- Geiger risk classifier
- Nucleus package database
- av.db category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph
- curated package history
- package relationship graph
- package version freshness
- package-page enrichment