How to check if command line tools is installed

Question

I have a macbook pro with OS X 10 8 2  XCode is installed  I know this as it appears in the Applications directory  There are also the xcodebuild and xcode-select files in  usr bin I need to know if the command line tools is installed  Is there a command for it  What can I do to see if XCode CLT is installed and if yes to find the version installed

User · Answer

Yosemite

Below are a few extra steps on a fresh Mac that some people might need. This adds a little to @jnovack's excellent answer.

Update: A few other notes when setting this up:

Make sure your admin user has a password. A blank password won't work when trying to enable a root user.

System Preferences > Users and Groups > (select user) > Change password

Then to enable root, run dsenableroot in a terminal:

$ dsenableroot
username = mac_admin_user
user password:
root password:
verify root password:

dsenableroot:: ***Successfully enabled root user.

Type in the admin user's password, then the new enabled root password twice.

Next type:

sudo gcc

or

sudo make

It will respond with something like the following:

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:


You have not agreed to the Xcode license agreements. You must agree to 
both license agreements below in order to use Xcode.

Press enter when it prompts to show you the license agreement.

Hit the Enter key to view the license agreements at 
'/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/License.rtf'

IMPORTANT: BY USING THIS SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE 
FOLLOWING APPLE TERMS:

//...

Press q to exit the license agreement view.

By typing 'agree' you are agreeing to the terms of the software license 
agreements. Type 'print' to print them or anything else to cancel, 
[agree, print, cancel]

Type agree. And then it will end with:

clang: error: no input files

Which basically means that you didn't give make or gcc any input files.

Here is what the check looked like:

$ xcode-select -p
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Mavericks

With Mavericks, it is a little different now.

When the tools were NOT found, this is what the command pkgutil command returned:

$ pkgutil --pkg-info=com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables
No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables' found at '/'.

To install the command line tools, this works nicely from the Terminal, with a nice gui and everything.

$ xcode-select --install

http://macops.ca/installing-command-line-tools-automatically-on-mavericks/

When they were found, this is what the pkgutil command returned:

$ pkgutil --pkg-info=com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables
package-id: com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables
version: 5.0.1.0.1.1382131676
volume: /
location: /
install-time: 1384149984
groups: com.apple.FindSystemFiles.pkg-group com.apple.DevToolsBoth.pkg-group com.apple.DevToolsNonRelocatableShared.pkg-group

This command returned the same before and after the install.

$ pkgutil --pkg-info=com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLI
No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLI' found at '/'.

Also I had the component for the CLT selected and installed in xcode's downloads section before, but it seems like it didn't make it to the terminal...

Hope that helps.

User · Answer

10 14 Mojave Update   See Yosemite Update   10 13 High Sierra Update   See Yosemite Update   10 12 Sierra Update   See Yosemite Update   10 11 El Capitan Update   See Yosemite Update   10 10 Yosemite Update   Just enter in gcc or make on the command line  OSX will know that you do not have the command line tools and prompt you to install them     To check if they exist  xcode-select -p will print the directory   Alternatively  the return value will be 2 if they do NOT exist  and 0 if they do   To just print the return value  thanks  Andy    xcode-select -p 1 gt  dev null echo      10 9 Mavericks Update   Use pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg CLTools Executables  10 8 Update   Option 1  Rob Napier suggested to use pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg DeveloperToolsCLI  which is probably cleaner   Option 2  Check inside  var db receipts com apple pkg DeveloperToolsCLI plist for a reference to com apple pkg DeveloperToolsCLI and it will list the version 4 5 0    Mar 12 17 04   jnovack yourmom     defaults read  var db receipts com apple pkg DeveloperToolsCLI plist       InstallDate    2012-12-26 22 45 54  0000       InstallPrefixPath            InstallProcessName   Xcode      PackageFileName    DeveloperToolsCLI pkg       PackageGroups                  com apple FindSystemFiles pkg-group            com apple DevToolsBoth pkg-group            com apple DevToolsNonRelocatableShared pkg-group             PackageIdentifier    com apple pkg DeveloperToolsCLI       PackageVersion    4 5 0 0 1 1249367152       PathACLs                 Library      acl 1  ngroup ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF0000000C everyone 12 deny delete  n           System      acl 1  ngroup ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF0000000C everyone 12 deny delete  n

User · Answer

On macOS Sierra  10 12      Run the following command to see if CLT is installed   xcode-select -p   this will return the path to the tool if CLT is already installed  Something like this -    Applications Xcode app Contents Developer  Run the following command to see the version of CLT   pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg CLTools Executables   this will return version info  output will be something like this -  package-id  com apple pkg CLTools Executables version  8 2 0 0 1 1480973914 volume    location    install-time  1486372375

User · Answer

From a programmatic perspective the Homebrew folks have a check for the existence of various files to determine if the command line tools are installed  Currently it always checks for   Library Developer CommandLineTools usr bin git and will also check for  usr include iconv h if the OS version is 10 13 or below

User · Answer

xcode-select -h Usage  xcode-select  options  Print or change the path to the active developer directory  This directory controls which tools are used for the Xcode command line tools  for example  xcodebuild  as well as the BSD development commands  such as cc and make   Options  -h  --help                  print this help message and exit -p  --print-path            print the path of the active developer directory -s   --switch   set the path for the active developer directory --install                   open a dialog for installation of the command line developer tools -v  --version               print the xcode-select version -r  --reset                 reset to the default command line tools path

User · Answer

To check if command line tools are installed run   xcode-select --version     if installed you will see the below with the version found in your system    xcode-select version 1234    If command line tools are not installed run   xcode-select --install

User · Answer

Because Xcode subsumes the CLI tools if installed first  I use the following hybrid which has been validated on 10 12 and 10 14  I expect it works on a lot of other versions   installed   pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg CLTools Executables 2 gt  dev null    pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg Xcode   Salt with awk to taste for branching logic   Of course xcode-select -p handles the variations with a really short command but fails to give the detailed package  version  and installation date metadata

User · Answer

Open your terminal and check to see if you have Xcode installed already with this    xcode-select -p   in return  if you get this    Library Developer CommandLineTools   That means you have that Xcode is installed   Another way you can check would you if you have  HomeBrew  installed you can use the following command to see if you have Xcode and the version   brew config   And finally  if you don t have the Xcode follow this link to download the Xcode from the Appstore  Xcode from the App Store   Good Luck

User · Answer

I think the simplest way which worked for me to find Command line tools is installed or not and its version irrespective of what macOS version is   brew config   macOS  10 14 2-x86 64 CLT  10 1 0 0 1 1539992718 Xcode  10 1    This when you have Command Line tools properly installed and paths set properly   Earlier i got output as below macOS  10 14 2-x86 64 CLT  N A Xcode  10 1  CLT was shown as N A in spite of having gcc and make working fine and below outputs   xcode-select -p                Applications Xcode app Contents Developer  pkgutil --pkg-info com apple pkg CLTools Executables No receipt for  com apple pkg CLTools Executables  found at       brew doctor Your system is ready to brew    Finally doing xcode-select --install resolved my issue of brew unable to find CLT for installing packages as below   Installing sphinx-doc dependency  python Warning  Building python from source    The bottle needs the Apple Command Line Tools to be installed    You can install them  if desired  with      xcode-select --install

User · Answer

Go to Applications   Xcode   preferences   downloads  You should see the command line tools there for you to install

User · Answer

In macOS Catalina  and possibly some earlier versions  you can find out where the command line tools are installed using   xcode-select -p a k a  xcode-select --print-path  Which will  if it is installed  respond with something like    Library Developer CommandLineTools  To find out which version you have installed there  you can use   xcode-select -v a k a  xcode-select --version  Which will return something like   xcode-select version 2370   However  if you attempt to upgrade it to the latest version  assuming it is installed  using this   xcode-select --install  You will receive in response   xcode-select  error  command line tools are already installed  use  Software Update  to install updates  Which rather erroneously gives the impression you need to use Spotlight find something called  Software Update   In actual fact  you need to continue in the Terminal  and use this   softwareupdate -i -a a k a  softwareupdate --install --all  Which tries to update everything it can and may well respond with   Software Update Tool  Finding available software No new software available    To find out which versions of the different Apple SDKs are installed on your machine  use this   xcodebuild -showsdks

[xcode] How to check if command line tools is installed

Yosemite

Mavericks

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