how to get XCode to add build date & time to Info.plist file

Ahhhh, I should have spent another 30 minutes (on top of the 2 hours I had already wasted) and looked at the answers for this question before posting my own:

Insert Subversion revision number in Xcode

This post-action script does the trick and works for me:

infoplist="$BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR/$INFOPLIST_PATH"builddate=`date`if [[ -n "$builddate" ]]; then    # if BuildDateString doesn't exist, add it    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :BuildDateString string $builddate" "${infoplist}"    # and if BuildDateString already existed, update it    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :BuildDateString $builddate" "${infoplist}"fi

As you can see, it's doing a bit of a hack there (adding it if it doesn't exist; setting it right afterwards).

If anyone can suggest a solution using the "defaults write" method above (which I think might be better supported than "PlistBuddy"), I'd be thrilled to find out (and of course I'll accept and use that superior answer, too).

The code in Michael's answer is incorrect or no longer up to date. The version below fixes an error in the set syntax and also supports build paths with spaces in them.

infoplist="$BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR/$INFOPLIST_PATH"builddate=`date`if [[ -n "$builddate" ]]; then    # if BuildDateString doesn't exist, add it    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :BuildDateString string $builddate" "${infoplist}"    # and if BuildDateString already existed, update it    /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :BuildDateString $builddate" "${infoplist}"fi

Note: This change was submitted as an edit but got rejected and I don't yet have enough reputation to post a comment on his answer...

I am using your exact code, but within the pre-action instead of the post-action, and the info.plist within the built product correctly reports the build date. In other words, you have to customize your info.plist before copying it into the built product, which sounds reasonable to me.

By the way, thanks for the suggestion, it's pretty clever and useful.