Xcode is a suite of tools, developed by
Apple, for developing software for
Mac OS X and
iOS. Xcode 4, the latest major version, is available on the
Mac App Store for $4.99, and on the
Apple Developer Connection website for free to registered developers (though membership costs $99 per year). Because version 4 is the first paid version, Xcode version 3 is still available for free download from the
Apple Developer Connection website. Mac OS X install DVDs typically include a copy of Xcode, as well.
The main application of the suite is the
integrated development environment (IDE), also named Xcode. The Xcode suite also includes most of Apple's developer documentation, and
Interface Builder, an application used to construct
graphical user interfaces.
The Xcode suite includes a modified version of
free software GNU Compiler Collection (GCC, apple-darwin9-gcc-4.2.1 as well as apple-darwin9-gcc-4.0.1, with the former being the default), and supports
C,
C++,
Objective-C,
Objective-C++,
Java,
AppleScript,
Python and
Ruby source code with a variety of programming models, including but not limited to
Cocoa,
Carbon, and Java. Third parties have added support for
GNU Pascal,
Free Pascal,
Ada,
C#,
Perl,
Haskell, and
D. The Xcode suite uses the
GNU Debugger as the
back-end for its
debugger.
