Cocoa Touch Framework Swift with embed libraries

Question

I am working on a suite of applications that contain common modules. I want to store the common modules in a Cocoa Touch Framework. This framework may also contain the libraries and Alamofire and SwiftyJSON because they are widely used in the modules. Currently, despite the many tutorials, articles, etc. read on the internet, I cannot get a stable solution.

• Is it possible to integrate the frameworks Alamofire and SwiftyJSON within the framework custom or is it better to integrate them in the different projects consuming the framework (they will also need individually) ?
• Is it possible to generate a framework running on the simulator and on the phone (whatever methods: subproject or not, dynamic or static library, fat library) ?

Answer 1

You can absolutely do this. You currently have three options for setting this up for development and two options for deployment.

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Development

Git Submodules

Git submodules are a great way to bring additional libraries into your project's repository to embed in your project. All you need to do is add the submodule, then drag the Xcode project of that library into your Xcode project so it's nested inside your project. Then you need to add the framework as a link target to your library.

Carthage

Carthage also supports git submodules through the --use-submodules flag. All you need to do is install carthage through homebrew, then create a Cartfile that adds Alamofire and SwiftyJSON using the following command.

carthage update --use-submodules

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency management system that allows you to easily pull in and deploy different versions of a given library. Since both Alamofire and SwiftyJSON support CocoaPods, you could create a Podfile , and run pod install to pull the pods into your library. I would not recommend this though as this is a pretty heavy weight approach. Instead, I would recommend using either Git Submodules or Carthage for development.

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Deployment

Deployment is a MUCH different situation. Currently, there are two fairly robust deployment mechanisms for iOS and OSX that are in wide use in the OSS community (including Alamofire and Carthage).

Carthage

If you imported your git submodules using Carthage, then you may already be completely supporting Carthage deployments. It depends on whether you used a Cartfile.private file to pull in your dependencies. Given what you're trying to do, I doubt that you would use a private Cartfile and would instead use the public one. This means that you should be good to go right out of the box. Awesome!

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is much different than Carthage and has some big advantages over Carthage, at a cost. You need to create a podspec file and push that into a public or private spec repo. Then anyone can pull your pod into their project using a Podfile.

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Summary

As you can see, there are MANY options here. I would highly recommend using Carthage to pull in your git submodules, then supporting both Carthage and CocoaPods for deployment. I know that's a lot of effort though, so you may want to focus on one or the other. Sorry for the massive amount of links and information, but you question leads me to believe that you would greatly benefit from all these various sources.

Hopefully that helps get you on your way to becoming a dependency development and deployment ninja.