macOS Hunting for Leopard Xcode Core Reference Documentation

[AphoticD]

I am searching for the Apple Developer Connection Core Reference Library for Leopard docset for a PowerPC supported project. Unlike Xcode 2.5 on Tiger, the docs which shipped with Xcode 3.1.4 on Leopard were only a partial skeleton and were designed to be "fleshed out" by pulling them down via RSS from Apple's servers, but these .atom feeds are no longer valid.

Scouring the net, I was able to locate the Snow Leopard Core Reference docset and also a hugely comprehensive Legacy Reference tome (with dev articles dating back to System 7 circa 1994), but Apple appear to have expunged all traces of the Leopard PowerPC developer docs. The Snow Leopard docs are still somewhat usable, but not integrated into Xcode as the expected version would be.

Drilling into the Xcode 3.1.4 (Leopard) partial docs info reveals that Leopard's Core Ref Docset was linked to the feed at: https://developer.apple.com/rss/adcdocsets.atom

Using the Wayback Machine, I was able to locate an old link which had the docset in .xar format at:
http://developer.apple.com/docsets/May2009/com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.CoreReference.xar
(length: 290685981 bytes)

This is the file I'm looking for. But alas, this old link is a dead end.

Just wondering if anyone did a personal backup of these docs before Apple pulled them? If you had hit the "Subscribe" button in Xcode back when the feed was available (around 2011?) then your docs should be at:

/Developer/Documentation/DocSets/com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.CoreReference.docset

The installed partial (incomplete) docset is 421.7MB, so if your file is closer to a gigabyte then it should be the complete set.

Thanks in advance.

-AphoticD

(Note: I have also posted this on the PowerPC Macs forum. My apologies for the duplicate).

 

[mif]

I may have the item you want. I am not sure.

When i installed XCode tools for my old G5, there is a file named com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.CoreReference.docset. The size is over gigabyte.

 

[AphoticD]

I may have the item you want. I am not sure.

When i installed XCode tools for my old G5, there is a file named com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.CoreReference.docset. The size is over gigabyte.

Great! Are you able to zip it and upload? Thank you.

If it's complete, then when you go to ADC Documentation in Xcode on your G5, it should go straight to the searchable index (or contents/categories page) and not the "this documentation is incomplete" page.

 

[mif]

Ok. The address is

https://www.4shared.com/s/fVL3hNhZNca

Hope this is not a wild goose chase, but complete.

edit: i checked the link and all you get is stupid ads. If you know some free site, just say so.

 

[AphoticD]

Ok. The address is

https://www.4shared.com/s/fVL3hNhZNca

Hope this is not a wild goose chase, but complete.

edit: i checked the link and all you get is stupid ads. If you know some free site, just say so.

All good. I was able to login with my gmail account to download the file. I'm not sure why that was necessary, but it worked. My apologies for not getting back to you sooner.

Thank you for sharing the docset. Was this from the Leopard retail DVD? It looks to be about two years behind Xcode 3.1.4, which was the last version for Leopard.

Although it doesn't simply link in and integrate into Xcode as I hoped, I was able to add the docset to Xcode's reference library by double clicking the .docset file. I have opted to store this now in ~/Library/Developer/Shared/Documentation/DocSets/ instead of overwriting the partial set as it is an older version. The partial set seems to contains all of the Code-Sense lookup index.

I can still go through and read all of the Leopard-specific guides, which is really what I was looking for, so thank you. This will help me build the project.

I'll try linking this docset file into my Dash library next to get Leopard/PPC specific guides while I work on the project in the comfort of Xcode 8 on my Mac Pro.

-AphoticD

 

[JohnAJ]

The link is now invalid. If anybody here still has the file, I or someone else could upload it to a more permanent storage place.