XCFramework with Pods Dependencies

Question

Our goal is to create a framework that hides our internal code and provide SDK to our customers. We have thought of creating XCFramework which fulfills our requirement. Umbrella framework is also suggested over the internet but mostly suggested to avoid that approach. Our Framework is dependent on some third-party libraries which we are using via Pods.

Issue: XCFramework does not compile pods framework. We got an error like "Xyz(Pod) module not found". Even if we add pods from the client-side it does not work.

Code to create XCFramework is as bellow

1) Create an archive for iOS platform

xcodebuild archive -workspace ABC.xcworkspace \
  -scheme ABC \
  -sdk iphoneos \
  -archivePath "./archives/ios_devices.xcarchive" \
  BUILD_LIBRARY_FOR_DISTRIBUTION=YES \
  SKIP_INSTALL=NO

2) Create an archive for iOS-Simulator platform

  xcodebuild archive  -workspace ABC.xcworkspace \
  -scheme ABC \
  -sdk iphonesimulator \
  -archivePath "./archives/ios_simulators.xcarchive" \
  BUILD_LIBRARY_FOR_DISTRIBUTION=YES \
  SKIP_INSTALL=NO

3) Create an XCFramework from Archives

xcodebuild -create-xcframework \
-framework ./archives/ios_devices.xcarchive/Products/Library/Frameworks/ABC.framework \
-framework ./archives/ios_simulators.xcarchive/Products/Library/Frameworks/ABC.framework \
-output build/ABC.xcframework

We got ABC XCFramework successfully but dependencies are not included in XCFramework. Any solution for this? or Is there any way where we can set framework search path to client-side? or Any alternate approach?

Answer 1

You can create a pod and publish it.

Check https://guides.cocoapods.org/making/making-a-cocoapod.html

Sample Podspec file with XCFramework + Third party dependency

Pod::Spec.new do |s|  
    s.name              = 'XCFrameworkTest' # Name for your pod
    s.version           = '0.0.1'
    s.summary           = 'Sample Spec'
    s.homepage          = 'https://www.google.com'

    s.author            = { 'Sample' => '[email protected]' }
    s.license = { :type => "MIT", :text => "MIT License" }

    s.platform          = :ios
    # change the source location
    s.source            = { :http => 'http://localhost:8080/XCFrameworkTest.zip' } 
    s.ios.deployment_target = '10.0'
    s.ios.vendored_frameworks = 'XCFrameworkTest.xcframework' # Your XCFramework
    s.dependency 'PromisesSwift', '1.2.8' # Third Party Dependency
end 

After you publish your pod, Customer can use cocopods to get our framework.

In Customer's Podfile

pod 'XCFrameworkTest' #Your pod name

Answer 2

I have created a template for this purpose. You can test it by running the command

pod lib create YourLibName --template-url="https://github.com/zalazara/pod-template-xcframework.git"

The template basically generates an example project together with its podfile file where, in turn, the framework to be developed is embedded, then the generation file compiles the framework using the workspace.

BUILD_DIR="Build"
TMP_DIR="${BUILD_DIR}/Tmp"
IOS_ARCHIVE_PATH="${TMP_DIR}/iOS.xcarchive"
IOS_SIM_ARCHIVE_PATH="${TMP_DIR}/iOSSimulator.xcarchive"

rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR}
rm -rf "${FRAMEWORK_NAME}.xcframework"

xcodebuild archive \
 -workspace "Example/${WORKSPACE}" \
 -scheme ${SCHEME} \
 -archivePath ${IOS_SIM_ARCHIVE_PATH} \
 -sdk iphonesimulator \
 SKIP_INSTALL=NO \
 | xcpretty


 xcodebuild archive \
 -workspace "Example/${WORKSPACE}" \
 -scheme ${SCHEME} \
 -archivePath ${IOS_ARCHIVE_PATH} \
 -sdk iphoneos \
 SKIP_INSTALL=NO \
 | xcpretty

 xcodebuild -create-xcframework \
 -framework ${IOS_SIM_ARCHIVE_PATH}/Products/Library/Frameworks/${FRAMEWORK_NAME}.framework \
 -framework ${IOS_ARCHIVE_PATH}/Products/Library/Frameworks/${FRAMEWORK_NAME}.framework \
 -output ${FRAMEWORK_NAME}.xcframework \
 | xcpretty

For more information : https://github.com/zalazara/pod-template-xcframework.git