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.
Related
I am trying to link C++ based library file to an view based xcode project.
I am building a application for iPhone simulator.
So question is, is it possible to link C++ library to a objective-c project?
If yes then do I need to have an interface in between Objective-C code and the Library?
or can I use lib C++ functions/classes directly in the Objective-C class/methods.
Can some one please point to some good tutorials/examples to how to load a C++ based lib and use it in View based application in XCODE.
I have gone through this link:
http://www.eosgarden.com/en/articles/xcode-static-libraries/
There shouldn't be much you need to do. Have you renamed all files that uses the library to .mm? After that, everything should work the same. You can put C++ code on 1 line, then put Objective-C code the other line.
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.
What is the best way to reuse code within projects?
Let's say I implemented a UI Element and I want it to be used in both my iphone and ipad application without having to copy the code over and have 2 copies of it.
Just create a project, which includes all your shared code in XCode and reference this project in your iPhone and iPad application project. Plain and simple.
For me I would make a static library project which contains the shared code (UI Element in your example) in Xcode.
Then when I need to use the library in the iPhone or iPad app project, then I can just reference the static library project by drag and drop the project to the Project Navigator and configure the correct dependency, library used and header search path. In this way you always have a single source of library source code for easier maintenance and modification.
Certainly you can actually compile the static library into binary and link it to your project, but it just not too flexible when you find bugs in your static library and need to switch to another project to correct the bug, and then do the compile and copy of the binary library file.
I have just wrote an article (link below) on how to link up the static library project to an iOS project on Xcode 4.3.2. This maybe useful for you to solve the header not found problem you encountered. Hope this help.
http://vicidi.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/linking-an-ios-static-library-project-in-another-project-in-xcode-4-3-2/
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.