Info.plist value as C++ #define

Question

In a C++ iOS project (or any other Mac OS), is there a simple way of making a value available both to the Info.pList settings, and to the code in the form of a preprocessor macro?

Ideally, I would like to have something like this

C++ code:

#define MY_VERSION_STRING "1.0"

Info.pList

CFBundleVersion: ${MY_VERSION_STRING}

Or alternatively, is there a way of getting values from the .pList in c++? (Without manually parsing the .pList as xml.)

Answer 1

Probably not the best solution, but you could use the /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy utility in a build script to generate a .h file containing a define with a value extracted from the plist.

To output a value from a plist:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print :Path:To:Key' filename.plist

Answer 2

I know this has already been answered, but I'll add my two cents for posterity. As Richard mentioned above, Xcode has a couple of options for preprocessing Info.plist files -- the most relevant to the current question are "Preprocess Info.plist" and "Info.plist Preprocessor Prefix File".

If your version information is defined in, say ver.h, you can include ver.h as the prefix file and refer to the version macro directly from Info.plist.

Answer 3

This is all readily doable without involving PlistBuddy at all, entirely using build settings.

you create a user defined build setting for your project/target either in the Xcode UI or if you're familiar with xcconfig files you can define it there in a completely textual = form.

1. you create your setting MY_VERSION_STRING with a value of 1.0 as your build setting either in Xcode or in an xcconfig file.
2. in your Info.plist your CFBundleVersion line would have a value of ${MY_VERSION_STRING}
3. you turn on Info.plist preprocessing
4. lastly, make use of GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS build variable. for that build setting you can specify a value of MY_VERSION_STRING=${MY_VERSION_STRING} which will result in your defined and shared build setting definition available in to your c/c++/obj-c code as if you had created it as a #define