Cordova call plugin code from appdelegate IOS - ios

Question

I am trying to build a plug in for a Cordova App. In this plug in I have some native code for push notifications. I have added the files needed inside the plug in and now i am trying to call a header from app's AppDelegate.m. But the import has the error "file not found". I have added the header file in the plugin's plugin.xml as: < header-file src="src/ios/xxxxx/xxxxx.h" />
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

AppDelegate.m is auto-generated when Cordova creates the iOS platform project so making direct modifications to it is not recommended since if you rebuild the platform project with cordova plugin rm ios && cordova platform add ios, any changes will be lost.
Plugins can work around this by using a category extension to the AppDelegate class which allows you to bundle code which extends the AppDelegate in your plugin repo without affecting the auto-generated file.
For example, you would create myplugin/src/ios/AppDelegate+MyPlugin.h:
#import "AppDelegate.h"
#interface AppDelegate (MyPlugin) <UIApplicationDelegate>
#end
Then in myplugin/src/ios/AppDelegate+MyPlugin.m you can implement your app delegate, for example:
#import "AppDelegate+MyPlugin.h"
#implementation AppDelegate (MyPlugin)
// A UIApplication delegate
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo
fetchCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult))completionHandler {
NSLog(#"Remote notification received");
}
...
To allow your AppDelegate category to interact with your Cordova plugin class, you can expose a public method which returns its singleton instance which the AppDelegate category can call; for example:
myplugin/src/ios/MyPlugin.h:
#import <Cordova/CDV.h>
#interface MyPlugin : CDVPlugin
// Public static method
+ (MyPlugin*) myPlugin;
// A public instance method
- (void)logMessage: (NSString*)msg;
#end
myplugin/src/ios/MyPlugin.m:
#import "MyPlugin.h"
#implementation MyPlugin
// Private static reference
static MyPlugin* myplugin;
// Public static method
+ (MyPlugin*) myplugin {
return myplugin;
}
// implement CDVPlugin delegate
- (void)pluginInitialize {
myplugin = self;
}
// A public instance method
- (void)logMessage: (NSString*)msg
{
NSLog(#"MyPlugin: %#", msg);
}
#end
Then in myplugin/src/ios/AppDelegate+MyPlugin.m you can make use of your plugin methods:
#import "AppDelegate+MyPlugin.h"
#import "MyPlugin.h"
#implementation AppDelegate (MyPlugin)
// A UIApplication delegate
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo
fetchCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult))completionHandler {
[MyPlugin.myPlugin logMessage:#"Remote notification received"];
}
...
An example of a plugin which takes this approach is cordova-plugin-firebasex.