[bug] Xcode 26 XCodeDeps universal arch filter broken

[ovaar]

Describe the bug

After updating from Xcode 16 to Xcode 26 the xcconfig arch filters stopped working.

Environment details:
os: macOS
compiler: apple-clang
ide: Xcode 26.2
arch: armv8 + x86_64
conan: 2.24.0

Conan profile:

[settings]
    compiler=apple-clang
    build_type=Release
    compiler.cppstd=23
    compiler.libcxx=libc++
    arch=armv8|x86_64
    os=Macos

from conan import ConanFile
from conan.tools.apple import XcodeToolchain, XcodeDeps
class ExampleConan(ConanFile):

    description = ""
    license = ""
    author = ""

    settings = "os", "build_type", "arch", "compiler"
    options = {}

    def generate(self):
        if self.settings.os == "Macos":
            tc = XcodeToolchain(self)
            tc.generate()

            deps = XcodeDeps(self)
            deps.generate()

    def requirements(self):
        self.requires("glm/1.0.1")

Below is the generated file after running conan install:

// @file:conan_glm_glm_debug_armv8_x86_64.xcconfig

PACKAGE_ROOT_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = /Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p
// Compiler options for glm::glm
SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"
GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = 
OTHER_CFLAGS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = 
OTHER_CPLUSPLUSFLAGS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = 
FRAMEWORK_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = 

// Link options for glm::glm
LIBRARY_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = 
OTHER_LDFLAGS_glm_glm[config=Debug][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] =    

---

I was able to make the following two changes to the generated xcconfig files in my project and with these two patches I able to make it work again for Xcode 26.

1. So each line that has the arch=xyz should be transformed from:

SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Release][arch=armv8|x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"

to:

SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Release][arch=x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"
SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Release][arch=armv8][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"

2. Change arch=armv8 to arch=arm64, use to_apple_arch

SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Release][arch=x86_64][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"
SYSTEM_HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS_glm_glm[config=Release][arch=arm64][sdk=macosx*] = "/Users/thomas/.conan2/p/glm03b7769ae0c1f/p/include"

---

Note: I'm guessing an alternative would be to run conan install twice for-each arch, but that doubles the install time, which in my case takes a long time.

How to reproduce it

No response

[czoido]

Hi @ovaar,

Thanks a lot for the question. The thing is that the | syntax was never intended to work with XcodeDeps, XcodeToolchain or XcodeBuild. That feature was fundamentally designed and implemented for CMake generators (here is the PR that introduced the syntax: #15775) In fact, it raises for other generators and I think it should raise for these too. Maybe it was not failing before the Xcode update because the parser of xcconfig files was not so strict?

For this case, if you want to build Universal Binaries using XcodeDeps, you could try to run conan install twice (once for each architecture), and Conan will generate the specific configurations for each one and register both in the main .xcconfig file.

Something like:

# Install for Intel (x86_64)
conan install . -s arch=x86_64 ...

(This generates the x86_64 specific .xcconfig and adds an #include to the main config file)

# Install for Apple Silicon (arm64)
conan install . -s arch=arm64 ...

(This generates the arm64 specific .xcconfig and appends a new #include to the same main config file)

Now, open your project in Xcode. Add the conan_config.xcconfig to it and since the generated .xcconfig for all dependencies now includes valid conditional blocks for both architectures (separately), Xcode will automatically pick the correct paths/flags for each pass when you build for "Any Mac (Apple Silicon, Intel)".

Hope this helps

[memsharded]

Hi @ovaar

Any question or feedback about the last comment?

[ovaar]

The answer I got was clear and confirmed my suspicions.

I'm aware that the multiarch feature is only build for cmake and autotools and how bad I would like to move to cmake I still need to deal with allot of legacy, so unfortunately I need to still deal with XcodeDeps generators.

While running conan install twice is certainly an solution to my problem it is quite inconvenient, since for the projects I'm working on it takes quite some time to run install on all the recipes in my project, so only having to run it once would greatly improve our developers productivity.

Aside from that I'm still looking into inconsistencies in the [arch=] filter between the Xcode 16 and 26 respective to the .xcconfig files.

I can report my findings once I figured it out.

As always, appreciate the help!

[memsharded]

Hi @ovaar

Any update here? Did you managed to figure it out? Thanks for the feedback.

[ovaar]

Unfortunately, due to security updates I no longer have a macos machine at my disposal that has a lower os version than Tahoe, allowing me to validate those findings.

I went with replacing the archs in [arch=armv8|x86_64] to [arch=*], which works perfectly for my use case.