What exactly does `pod repo update` do?
cocoapods, ios, iphone, podfile, xcode
Solution
As per the documentation pod repo update updates the spec repos located at `~/.cocoapods/repos` in your home folder.
Updates the local clone of the spec-repo NAME. If NAME is omitted this will update all spec-repos in ~/.cocoapods/repos.
The `repo` is basically a list of all pods and versions available. I have just encountered an error in our CI builds because the repo did not include a spec for a library I have just added. By running `pod repo update` it now knows of this newer version and can continue to install it.
So to answer your question.. Running `pod repo update` in your documents folder will not do anything in that folder. It will update its pod spec references in your `~/.cocoapods/repos` folder only.
Problem
I'm following an internet tutorial on Firebase and as part of it, I had to do some work on the command line. I'm pretty comfortable with the command line, but I'm unfamiliar with Cocoapods. I ran `pod repo update` but after doing so I realized I ran it on my entire Documents folder of my Mac instead of the folder that contained my project. I took over 20 mins to execute and it printed out literally thousands of things when it finally completed, some of which included "create" and "deleted". I was kind of concerned- would run this command have modified anything in my Documents besides the Firebase project? And what does `pod repo update` even do for that matter?