I have been looking for 2 days now, trying to find a way to get a single iOS framework-file for the ZXing QR reader. The only thing i can find, is a ZXingWidget project to include in my own project. But here, i have to add path's, dependencies etc. for it to work.
Isn't there a way to create one single .framework file that can easily be added to any new projects needing this feature?
I have found a kstenerud iOS framework template to create frameworks, but i can't make it work with the ZXing project.
No, there's no good solution for this for iOS.
Frameworks are generally (always?) dynamically-linked libraries and Apple doesn't allow DLLs on iOS. Note that there are now framework builds for OS X.
It may be possible to hack Xcode to produce a framework with a statically linked library, but that's going against Apple's patterns which means I suspect it will push Xcode into corner cases which fail in subtle and hard to debug ways and which have a high chance of breaking across Xcode versions.
This opinion comes in part from talking to Apple Xcode engineers at WWDC about cleaning up the ZXing project files. There are new project files now that follow all the best practices they recommended but on iOS they still require the same include path and library linkage project customization that the old project files require.
Related
I am currently building code that I would really like to use as a framework by being able to import MyCustomFramework as I would with Apple frameworks (in the future I would also like to distribute them).
I have some questions about that :
What is the easiest way to build a framework as what I want? Is this possible to do it directly in Xcode or do I need to use command line tools in the Terminal?
Will this framework be compatible with multiple platforms (I am thinking about all Apple platforms but also about other platforms supported by Swift such as Linux).
What is exactly the link between Swift frameworks and the Swift Package Manager ? Do I need SPM to build my framework or is this two different tools?
Thank you.
Currently, Swift Package Manager (SPM) and Xcode Frameworks follow different paths. For Linux, you have to follow the SPM path since the only way to compile a Linux swift application is to use SPM. For macOS command line apps, you can follow the SPM path as well. For iOS apps and macOS UI apps, you have to follow the Xcode Frameworks path.
For the SPM path, you make the project of your framework SPM-enabled: add Package.swift file and set the file layout of your project according to SPM conventions. The project also has to be a git repository. Then the git repository of your project can be specified as a dependency to other SPM-enabled frameworks/applications. Each SPM-enabled project can be converted to an Xcode project any time by using swift package generate-xcodeproj command.
The Xcode Frameworks path is the standard, pre-SPM way of working with frameworks with Xcode, which is described elsewhere. You create an Xcode Project that will define your framework.
So, if you want your framework to be used both in SPM-enabled projects for Linux and macOS command line apps, and in Xcode-enabled projects for iOS and macOS UI apps, you have to follow the dual path. You make your project SPM-enabled and add an Xcode Project which will define your framework. You will have to maintain your project information twice - in Package.swift file and in the Xcode Project.
I gave a detailed answer on how to use Xcode to create a Framework target in an answer 2 weeks ago here. The question wasn't specifically related to Frameworks, so I can understand how it doesn't come up in a search. (I also believe if I copied/pasted it here that would be unwelcome, but if I'm wrong I'll do it.)
For now a Swift Framework target can be compatible across Apple platforms, provided you separate UIKit, Foundation, and core code into their own frameworks. (There may be a better way but that's the best way I know.
About Swift core code: Currently Swift is (still) evolving fast. Swift 3 is beginning to have production server-side use and some Linux use, but right now with no binary compatibility (that's part of Swift 4) I'd stick to Apple platforms.
I've heard conflicting things about Swift version compatibility between Swift 2 & 3. By this I mean you can use both in the same project, but there are hurdles if you do.
This question comes from this other one I asked earlier: Calling custom Objective-C from a pyobjc application?
I want to re-use a small part of the app logic from my iPhone app in its server-side component, which runs on OSX. Based on what I was told in the other question, it looks like I need to compile a "framework" for both iOS and OSX from this little piece of app logic.
If we assume that I am able to isolate all the code that is to be in this framework into a single .h/.m pair of files that has no other non-Cocoa dependencies, what would be the easiest way in XCode to build this framework for each architecture and avoid double-coding all this logic on the server?
I tried adding a new OSX framework build target to my iPhone project, but this doesn't get very far and XCode bails out pretty quickly with:
target specifies product type 'com.apple.product-type.framework', but there's no such product type for the 'iphonesimulator' platform
Any help much appreciated, as I am currently dupe-implementing to keep things moving forward, but this is pretty obviously becoming a huge waste of time and source of errors when the implementations become slightly out-of-sync.
Depends on what you used in your custom class. If you did not use anything from UIKit / AppKit then the class is probably going to live well on either platform, otherwise, you’d have to use target conditionals and include separate code specially written for both platforms.
You can have multiple targets in one Xcode project, their Base SDK set separately for the Mac / iDevices.
Adam's comment to my original question answers this question. Although still interested to see if there is a way to do it all from a single XCode project, the solution I have now is plenty good enough for what I wanted to achieve.
What's the best practice to include existing C Libraries into an iPhone Project? I searched the Internet and actually found some pieces but nothing that explains the exact way to do it.
I'm trying to include the following Citrix XenServer SDK Library.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
You could try to build a static library and link against that.
I didn't try that myself yet, but as far as I could see, libxenserver has libxml2 as its only dependency.
libxml2 is available on the iPhone so you might have a chance.
To get started, create a Cocoa touch static library project and drag the C files into the project.
Now you have to figure out where to place the include files.
This might get a bit tricky and you will start with a lot of compile errors, but to me it seems possible to get it compiled.
The way I did it was to just create an iPhone static library project in Xcode and drop all the library's files in there. Then check if it builds and if the build settings are appropriate for the library you wish to compile. To add the newly-created library to your binary, you should follow the steps explained in the bottom part of the Three20 readme.
Note that you can only add static libraries to iPhone projects if you wish to get them into the App Store. Xcode also doesn't provide means to create dynamic iPhone libraries.
Is it possible to create an own obj-C Cocoa Touch framework which can be used by other developers? And furthermore can you protect this framework?
I've created templates for Xcode 4 that allow you to build universal iOS frameworks (which work in both device and simulator).
Once the templates are installed, you simply select "Static iOS Framework" when creating a new project and it does the rest. It also works with unit tests.
https://github.com/kstenerud/iOS-Universal-Framework
You can create a static library. There is an option in the XCode project chooser to do this. You'll have to distribute the compiled static library file and the header files to users of your library. Your actual implementation files (.m) do not need to be distributed.
GHUnit does a good job of this - packaging up the libraries for both simulator and device - so I recommend looking at this project. (I also recommend using this library for unit testing :-)
The frameworks in Objective C are typically just C / ObjC code and a bunch of classes, nothing amazingly special. As such, you can create your own if you'd like, and then just include that in your project when you build it. The iPhone doesn't care about the difference, it just knows to put all that code into your app, along with everything else.
Have a look at the Framework Programming Guide on Apple's website. It will get you started. Essentially what you'll do is create a Framework project in XCode and then go from there.
As for "protecting" your framework, I assume you mean making your code unreadable. I'm not sure if and how you can do this, but perhaps Apple's guide will say something about it.
Yes you can create frameworks for use with Cocoa Touch.
However there are these caveats:
has to be a statically linked libary, no dynamic loading (dyld) for us
should be a combined (lipo) library for i386 (simulator), arm6 and arm7
you need to hack a bundle project into a framework
you should embed (small and few) images into the library so that the developer does not have to mess around with resources but just drags/drops it into his project
... or if you have large and many images build a bundle with these
I have guides for these things on my site.
1+2 = http://www.drobnik.com/touch/2010/04/universal-static-libraries/
The other links you have to google because this site does not let me post more than one URL.
You could make a static library available as binary (i.e. rudimentary "protection") to third parties, but not a dynamic one, as Apple's App Store policy prevents dynamic linking.
Take a look at a worked example for static libraries given at
this site
If you're going to do it, in my opinion JSON.framework is a great example to follow. To hide/obfuscate the source code is a different story, and a different question entirely,
When creating a new project, navigate to iOS > Framework & Library > Cocoa Touch Framework, it's as simple as that. When you are successfully compile, .framework will be created under Products folder in XCode. Right click to show in Finder, and you can find the output.
It's unlikely this will work the way you want it to because the other developers won't be able to use your framework. This StackOverflow Question explains why.
Having trouble linking the Stomp.framework into an iPhone SDK application.
http://code.google.com/p/stompframework/
I follow the instructions, adding it to the project, adding a Build Phase for Copying the Files, and including it via #import .
I keep getting "image not found".
Anyone try this and/or have a clear idea why?
This may be better:
http://github.com/juretta/objc-stomp
I found it fairly easy to get going.
The iPhone SDK doesn't support embedding frameworks in applications. I believe it supports dylibs, though I'm not certain of that fact. However, the safest thing to do would be to take the source of that framework and compile it directly into your application.
Make sure that whatever folder contains the .framework bundle is listed in the Framework Search Paths setting of your target or project.
There's more you'd need to do if you want to embed the framework in your application but that's another question.
edit: Totally ignored the iPhone requirement there, you'll have to compile the framework as a static library and link against that.