How to extract xip archive using command line?

Question

I searched around how to extract XIP archive using command line with no luck so I am leaving my own solution, as a bash function, here.

I found my inspiration here.

Answer 1

function unxip()
{
    [ -z "$1" ] && echo "usage: unxip /path/to/archive.xip" && return

    # http://newosxbook.com/src.jl?tree=listings&file=pbzx.c
    PBZX="/usr/local/src/pbzx/pbzx" && [ ! -x "$PBZX" ] && echo "$PBZX not found." && return

    [ ! -f "$1" ] && echo "$1 not found." && return

    [ -f "Content" ] || [ -f "Metadata" ] && echo "Content or Metadata already exists." && return

    pkgutil --check-signature "$1" && xar -xf "$1" && "$PBZX" Content | sudo tar x --strip-components=1

    rm "Content" "Metadata"
}

We first check for xip file signature then extract its contents using xar. We then use Jonathan Levin pbzx to properly unpack pbzx chunks and pipe the output to tar, skipping . to avoid overwriting current working directory permissions.

This does the trick to unpack Xcode8.xip archives on OS X El Capitan.