I know of familiar tutorials on this, but introduction of framework XCode 6 template has changed the game.
I already watched WWDC 2014 video about building modern frameworks but it talks more about building extensions, framework & app all inside single project. It does not specify if the framework I make with it is truly reusable across any project.
I am building framework the XCode 6 way (File->New Project->Framework and Library->Cocoa Touch Framework), but when I import it inside my test app project (separate from framework project) - I keep getting various errors.
Example: Include of non-modular header inside framework, and so on.
I know this is not what it says, and there are quite some missing steps in whatever I am doing. The older tricks may have worked for everyone, but I simply don't find which way to follow after XCode 6.
For example, there is some folder structure that a framework needs, but XCode 6 doesn't comply to it while building it. Is it right? If not, how can I change the way the XCode builds framework folder hierarchy?
Do I go back to old school or am I screwing some tiny thing in XCode 6 that I am unable to create a reusable framework?
I am not sure if you are trying to build a framework with Objective-C or Swift as your question doesn't state it. I've encountered errors you are mentioning with Swift so I'll give you my method to build Swift frameworks.
I found the process for Objective-C to be very straightforward and well documented, so I'll skip this.
As for Swift, there are a few things to consider. First, Swift static libraries are not supported, so you must exclusively use a framework (aka dynamic library) when linking an app to a library.
Here are the steps:
Create the Framework using New > Project under IOS > Framework & Library, select Cocoa Touch Framework
To avoid the "ld: warning: directory not found for option..." goto Library Search Paths in Build Settings for your target and delete the paths.
You can't mix Objective-C with Swift so don't even consider adding the Swift-Header bridge file in your code.
There are some cases in swift where you need to import code from unexposed Frameworks. I've successfully used the module-map inside the framework to deal with these case.
I also select CLANG_ALLOW_NON_MODULAR_INCLUDES_IN_FRAMEWORK_MODULES = YES in the Build Settings to solve 'include of non-modular header inside framework module'. That seems to work
I make sure that the header file that gets generated is marked as Public (not Project). Click on the file and you'll see the selection in the inspector under 'Target Membership'
You may run into some bizarre error messages when building. Xcode has a tendency to report linker errors when your code can't compile correctly resulting in missing files the linker needs to output its binaries. Sometimes XCode won't show the errors in the files you are compiling and you need to go manually on the build output and go back to the files. Some other time, you'll get a problem where you need to delete the cache. Those issues I call XCode blues and deal with it constantly. I found this type of problems happens more often when building libraries. The rest should work as expected.
Related
I decided to try to make a Cocoa Touch Framework. Making it worked fine, but I am having trouble adding it to a project. After searching through a lot of SO posts and looking at Apple Forum threads I decided to try this from the Docs:
Add a framework bundle to a project in order to incorporate the
framework’s features into your product.
In the project navigator, select the project or group within a project
to which you want to add the framework.
Choose File > Add Files to “”.
Select the framework bundle, and click Add.
The frameworks you add this way are third-party-built bundles
containing the framework’s object code and runtime resources. See
related articles for information about linking to a framework without
adding it to the project.
After you add the framework, Xcode configures the targets in your
project to link them to the framework just added.
It still doesn't work. I am getting a No such module 'Scaffold' error for everything I try, I have checked spelling, but that is not it. Can someone explain how this works? I might just need clarification on how this is done.
Links I have looked at:
Create and import swift framework
Xcode error when I add a framework
Adding a framework to XCode 4
Xcode 5.1 compiler errors after adding a framework
Add a framework to an existing project without using cocoapods
What is the process for creating a Framework?
Hey I do not know if it is too late to answer this question, but due to the fact that I am facing same issues right know I would recommend you to check the Build Settings of the project where you import your framework
You should check the "Framework Search Path" and if the framework is at Swift and you import to an obj c project check YES to "Always embed swift standard libraries"
More or less the problem I think is in the Build Settings
Our company wants to distribute a closed-source SDK for iOS to our clients. I've been using Cocoapods to build the framework and built an example app making use of it. Previously the app worked fine on the simulator as well as when deployed on the device. However, I was also embedding the Pods.framework file in the app itself. One other piece of information that may be of interest is that the framework is written in Swift, the included cocoapods dependencies are both Swift and Objective-C.
I wanted to make the pods requirements easier to manage so the user doesn't need to be concerned with them and tried to embed the Pods.framework file inside of the SDK we're building - so I removed the steps to Embed Pods Frameworks and Copy Pods Resources from the example app, leaving them only in the framework, I also removed Pods.framework as a dependency of the example app, leaving it only in the SDK. This seemed to work in the simulator, but the app now crashes on mobile device with dyld: Library not loaded error.
Upon researching it, I stumbled into a few related discussions:
https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods/issues/344 https://objectpartners.com/2014/06/25/developing-private-in-house-libraries-with-cocoapods/
However, the suggested solution of using private pods does not look like it would work for us, it's my understanding that the source code in the private pod would still be open, and we can't share it with our clients.
Could someone advise on a solution that would work in this case?
OK, I finally have a more durable solution. It's a modified, cleaner version of my old one now that I understand how Xcode links in my Swift sub-frameworks better
Problem that makes distribution/compilation a bit ugly:
Since Swift standard libraries aren't bundled on the device like Obj-C, nor are they guaranteed to be stable between versions yet (stable binary interface promised in Swift 3: https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution#development-major-version--swift-30) we have to make sure the entire project is compiled against the same version of Swift. That means the guy using your closed-source framework has to be using the same version of Swift in their Xcode for their project as you did for compiling the library, even if he's not using Swift in his code because ultimately it's his version of Swift that gets bundled into the app and your SDK runs against. This is only an issue for closed-source frameworks because open-source ones will always be compiled against the same version as final project. Possible workaround is to restrict clients to same version you use or distribute multiple compilations (i.e. Swift 2.1 and Swift 2.0). To remedy this, you could provide users with copies of binaries compiled against multiple versions of Swift.
Aside from that, here is what I had to do during compilation/distribution to make a binary framework that works in Swift:
When building the framework:
In project target, make sure to add Pods.framework to Linked Frameworks and Libraries (make sure this is a pre-compiled RED version of Pods.framework, I had a black compiled Pods.framework in the same directory which built fine but then resulted in a framework that would cause the project to complain about missing armv7 architecture during linker phase in later project)
In Build Settings, under User-Defined section, add a field called BITCODE_GENERATION_MODE and set it to bitcode
DO NOT #import any frameworks in your bridging header, all instructions telling you to do that are leftover from Swift 1.0-1.2 days, you don't need it anymore and it does more harm than good (the later project will complain that it can't find these headers that aren't even exposed to it)
Change build target to Generic iOS Device, Archive and Export the framework
When building the project using the framework:
Drag and drop the framework into the project, in General tab add it to Embedded Binaries and Linked Frameworks and Libraries (you only need to add the framework itself, not the sub-frameworks or the pods file)
In Build Settings tab, add a new path to Framework Search Paths: $(PROJECT_DIR)/MyFramework.framework/Frameworks
Build the project
Ever since Embedded Binaries were introduced in iOS 8, I have been wanting to port a lot of my common code into frameworks. I decided to wait one year before doing it and this year, with Xcode 7 Beta and iOS 9, I'm starting to do that just that.
I have started a Cocoa Touch framework project in Xcode 7 and I want to compile it into a usable framework. I can get it to compile my project into a .framework, but there's a few issues; namely, the framework doesn't appear to be importable into new projects (I will describe the steps I did for that shortly). Because of that, I'm not sure if my framework has any visible symbols.
This is what I have done to create the Framework:
Created my Framework as a Cocoa Touch Framework.
Went to my target's Build Phases, went to Headers, and added all my Swift files to the "Public" section, in hopes that will export all my simbols without having to mark them as public.
I tried to archive my project as a framework. Currently, it looks like Xcode 7 Beta 3 has a bug (going to report it later today) in which it generates corrupted archive files. For this reason I couldn't get my framework from the Organizer Window. To work around this, I changed the schema of the Run action in Xcode from Debug to Release, built it and grabbed it's generated .framework from my project's build/iphoneos-release directory. This was a quick test so I didn't need the frameworks generated for emulators.
And this is what I did to try to add the framework to a new project:
Created a "Frameworks" group (for organizational purposes) and dragged the framework there, selecting "yes" when it asked me if I want to copy the file to my project's directory.
Went to my target's settings, removed my framework from "Linked Libraries" (it was added there automatically), added it to Embedded Binaries instead. This added the framework to Linked Libraries again, so I had to remove it from there twice. Leaving the framework in Linked Libraries causes a linker error (can't find the framework - no idea why but I think it's irrelevant to my problem and something I should report to Apple as well), but once you remove it from there it seems to compile fine when you add it to Embedded Binaries.
Tried to import my framework in a file. Xcode complains there is "no such module".
Unfortunately, despite the fact that embedded frameworks have been around for around a year, I can't find much writing on the topic.
So my question is: Am I creating the framework correctly, making it possible that my framework/anything else is failing due to an Xcode 7 Beta bug? Or is there a different procedure to create a framework that I want to use as an Embedded Binary? I should probably mention that I want to make this library open source, and I think distributing a plain .framework file to the people who want to use it would be neat.
I Had the same issue on Xcode 7.
I solved it by editing the build settings of the project (the one which includes the framework).
By setting the Framework Search Paths field to $(PROJECT_DIR) or to the path to the directory that contains the .framework file it should help Xcode finding the module.
Base on this question
Why don't iOS framework dependencies need to be explicitly linked to a static library
I read the selected answer and still don't understand so I made an example project
Test Project on Github
In the test project, I remove all framework from Link Binary With Libraries and File navigation for both main project and the static library (including Foundation.framework and UIKit.framework too), basically, both project link to 0 frameworks.
Questions are
In static library, it's including MapKit/MapKit.h without referencing the Mapkit.framework to the project, why is its still working?
In main project, I remove UIKit.framework and Foundation.framework from the project, why is it still working?
Since it's working for now, will there be any issue later?
Thank you for your comment.
P.S. By working, I mean I can run on the simulator and I can archive the main project without any error.
Edit 25/07/2014
I tried with the real app that I'm working on, it's the same.
I highlight Foundation, UIKit, CoreData and 10 another frameworks in File Navigation, well, all of them.
Uncheck the target in Utilities Panel --> Target Membership
Build : Pass, Run : Pass
Every functionality of my app is still working as expected. I don't get this.
Check your project build settings. Underneath LLVM 5.1 — Language — Modules you should see the option 'Link Frameworks Automatically'. In your case it sounds like it's set to 'YES', the default.
In that case, instead of producing an error when you reference a class that the compiler doesn't know, it'll figure out which Framework contains that class and link it. In your code it'll be MKMapView or one of the other MapKit classes that triggers the linkage.
EDIT: from the relevant 'What's New?' document:
Auto Linking is enabled for frameworks imported by code modules. When
a source file includes a header from a framework that supports
modules, the compiler generates extra information in the object file
to automatically link in that framework. The result is that, in most
cases, you will not need to specify a separate list of the frameworks
to link with your target when you use a framework API that supports
modules.
Another way of looking at it is that the compiler is smart enough to mutate #import to #import when the framework has been built appropriately. All system frameworks have been.
To elaborate #Tommy's answer, a framework that supports modules satisfies the following 2 conditions:
Under Build Settings > Packaging
Define Modules is set to YES
Module Map File exists.
So, if you're certain that the framework you're using in your code modularizes like that, you can choose to not explicitly add it in the link phase as it will be automatically added as long as in the project file, under Apple Clang - Language - Modules, The option Link Frameworks Automatically is set to YES.
I have a C library whose code resides in say /repos1/clib. I build that from the command line using the latest iOS sdk to create clib.a (including a debug build for the simulator) which I copy to an iOS project say in /repos2/proj.
I have been using this setup for several years. The old C library very occasionally might require some debugging and I was pleased by the fact that Xcode simply stepped into the library code that was outside the project (inside repos1) without having to do any setup - it just worked.
But this was up until a few Xcode versions ago. I am not sure exactly when it changed - perhaps when they moved from gcc to llvm? - since I very seldom needed to debug the C code, but for a while now I only get dissasembly when I try to debug the C library from the iOS project (including at least references to the C file name & line number). For the few times I need to debug it is very inconvenient (I create a temp project that includes the C code).
So, any idea why it worked before and doesn't now? Where should I look? Could it be the way I build the C library, maybe there was a flag in gcc I was using that does not have an equivalent in llvm (I can find and post the old build command I was using if it is relevant)? Is the issue in Xcode and there is a way to tell it where to look for the sources?
Thanks!
Edit: To make it clear, I can add the C library either as the source or as a subproject in Xcode, however for reasons that are out of scope this is not helpful for this specific project. So, can it work like it used to with older Xcode versions? If not, it would still be interesting to know why not.
The recommended approach is to create a library project in Xcode, one for iOS (there is a template for it), then when you get that to build add that project to your app, make sure the lib is a dependency and gets linked. There are many tutorials on the web how to do this.
Then as iOS evolves and new architectures (armv7s) arrive you simply update both projects.
I was struggling with the same issue.
I tried resetting in library/application project all options related to symbol stripping and copy application project to same truecrypt drive as library project but it didn't help.
In my case it appeared it was an app project issue. Same library could be debugged in another app project with source code so that was a clue.
I had more than one version of the same library in app project and set only target membership to choose which should be used. Not sure if that could affect my app project somehow.
Nevertheless after deleting all libraries and copying them to app project again I was able to debug libraries with access to source code.