Xcode 4 with opening brace on new line

XCode 4 uses “code snippets” to do autocompletion, and ships with a built-in library of them: You can view the Code Snippet Library by clicking on the { } icon in the Library Pane, which is probably on the lower right-hand side of your main XCode window.

All of XCode 4’s built-in code snippets put the opening brace on the same line as the statement – this is XCode 4’s code snippet for an if statement, for example:

if (<#condition#>) {
  <#statements#>
}

So if you wanted XCode 4 to autocomplete like so:

if (<#condition#>) 
{
  <#statements#>
}

…then you’d have to edit the code snippet accordingly. This, in turn, leads to two problems:

There are 44 code snippets built into XCode 4, and you’d have to edit each one separately.
XCode 4 won’t allow you to edit the built-in code snippets.

These problems are more challenging than the simple defaults write command that worked in XCode 3 – but it is possible, if you’re determined and you can edit property lists, to delve into the guts of XCode 4 and change these code snippets one by one.

/Developer/Library/Xcode/PrivatePlugIns/IDECodeSnippetLibrary.ideplugin/Contents/Resources/SystemCodeSnippets.codesnippets contains XCode 4’s library of built-in code snippets. This probably goes without saying, but you should make a backup of this file before charging in and making edits – and afterwards you should make another backup, and set aside a copy of the file with your new and improved code snippets, because you’ll almost certainly overwrite the contents of /Developer/Library/Xcode when you install the next release of XCode 4. (It’s also possible that Apple will change the format of this file, add new code snippets, or do any number of other things that could render this answer ineffective.)

If you have Xcode 4.3 or later installed directly from the App Store, everything is inside the Xcode.app bundle. The path to SystemCodeSnippets.codesnippets is /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/IDECodeSnippetLibrary.ideplugin/Contents/Resources/SystemCodeSnippets.codesnippets.

Anyhow, you’ll find the above file contains several entries like this one:

<dict>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetVersion</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetCompletionPrefix</key>
    <string>if</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetContents</key>
    <string>if (&lt;#condition#&gt;) {
  &lt;#statements#&gt;
}</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetIdentifier</key>
    <string>D70E6D11-0297-4BAB-88AA-86D5D5CBBC5D</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetLanguage</key>
    <string>Xcode.SourceCodeLanguage.C</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetSummary</key>
    <string>Used for executing code only when a certain condition is true.</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetTitle</key>
    <string>If Statement</string>
    <key>IDECodeSnippetCompletionScopes</key>
    <array>
        <string>CodeBlock</string>
    </array>
</dict>

This is the code snippet for autocompleting an if statement. Edit the IDECodeSnippetContents to put the opening brace on a new line, save your work, and then restart XCode 4; if all goes well, you should be able to type an if statement and see the results.

You’ll need to make at least half a dozen more edits to cover the most common autocompletes (for, while, etc.), and if you want to be thorough it’ll take somewhere around 40 separate edits. It’s a lot of work, but if you really, really want XCode 4’s autocompletion to put your opening braces on a separate line, it can be done.

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