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The tile basically says it all.

I'm developing a mac app which has the normal app target, but also has two more command-line tool targets whose products are copied to the app when building. I remember seeing somewhere that the "Skip install" was important in these cases, but I remember nothing of what I read, so this might be incorrect.

Anyway, I just wanted to know what this option affects.

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I would argue 90% of Xcode's "Build Settings" are so poorly named that Apple's own engineers probably don't even know what they do! They are all so nebulous and idiotically phrased... I struggle with them dearly. I can't imagine the utter confusion non-english speakers must encounter trying to figure out what most of them mean! –  alex gray Feb 21 at 5:01
@alexgray I agree... Admittedly, it could be worse, but not much more than it already is. –  Alex Feb 21 at 11:48
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up vote 5 down vote accepted

I believe this only matters when you're developing for the App Store. If you archive your app target and this includes buildung other targets (command line tools, static libraries, ...), all the targets' products are copied into the archive, unless SKIP_INSTALL is set to YES.

You can verify this: Archive your application, find the archive in the Organizer, Option-Click --> "Show in Finder", go into the archive (Option-Click --> "Show Package Contents"), and in /Products you will find multiple files/folders. However, App Store builds only allow one product within the Products directory. Xcode warns you about this if you "Validate" your archived app in the Organizer:

Skip Install not set for sub targets

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Thanks, I found out other sources that confirm this, and my own experience agrees as well. Since I'm developing for the MAS, this does matter. –  Alex May 5 '13 at 19:39
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