Add package dependency for a binary target with Swift Package Manager

Question

I'm developing a closed source framework, that will be distributed as an XCFramework using SPM. This is possible thanks to the new binaryTarget from swift tools 5.3. This works fine until the framework has dependencies.

416 - Binary frameworks states ... binary frameworks cannot depend on Packages., but this was before 5.3 and binary targets were not possible at all. On the Swift forums there is a suggested workaround that basically revolves around adding a dummy target that will list the dependencies (binaryTarget initialiser doesn't have a dependencies parameter).

The workaround works until the dependency has its own dependencies. For example Lottie which doesn't have any dependencies works fine, but Auth0 which has quite a few, fails with errors Missing required modules: 'Auth0ObjectiveC', 'SimpleKeychain'. Even adding Auth0 directly to the client project using SPM doesn't fix these errors.

Here is my Package.swift which works partially.

// swift-tools-version:5.3
import PackageDescription
let package = Package(
    name: "MyFramework",
    platforms: [
        .iOS(.v13)
    ],
    products: [
        .library(name: "MyFramework", targets: ["MyFramework", "MyFramework-Dependencies"])
    ],
    dependencies: [
        .package(name: "Auth0", url: "https://github.com/auth0/Auth0.swift.git", from: "1.30.1")
    ],
    targets: [
        .binaryTarget(name: "MyFramework", path: "MyFramework.xcframework"),
        .target(name: "MyFramework-Dependencies", dependencies: ["Auth0"], path: "MyFramework-Dependencies")
    ])

It it possible to actually have a binary framework depend on a package? If not, what would be the proper way distribute a dependency for a binary framework?

Answer 1

We've solved this problem by creating a wrapper target that depends on both the binary framework and other dependencies. See an example here.