Can I make iOS all-in-one framework? or include private static library into my framework?

Question

I'm a novice on XCode and I'm making an iOS Framework with Swift2, including 3rd party libraries(*.a) and frameworks.

I want to provide it as API to others, but I also want to hide the 3rd party libs and frameworks files from my framework distribution files because they are private.

Therefore I just want to open API interfaces and classes I defined.

Is it possible? How to configure my build options?

Answer 1

You can do that but there are some things you need to consider:

1. You cannot embed one framework into another one. That means if you do not have the sources to a particular framework you have to ship it alongside your own framework. If you have the sources you may consider compiling them into your framework directly.

2. Depending on the sources that you use in the framework you might have to do some post processing of the framework to obfuscate private headers etc. For example, if you use Objective-C or C code alongside Swift you definitely need to do some post processing of your *.framework file to hide any API that you want to keep private.

3. If you use Swift code in your framework please be aware that your framework can only be used by someone with the same Swift compiler version due to the absence of an ABI . That means binaries produced by one compiler version have a high likelihood of being incompatible to a newer version of the compiler.

4. Static linked libraries can be linked and therefore "merged" into your framework binary directly. You just need to make sure that you have a compatible binary for the architecture you want to target, eg, you cannot use a static linked library that was build for simulator and link it against your framework that you want to build for the actual iOS device.

5. If you use Swift in your framework, the users of your framework need to include the Swift dylib libraries in their app bundle - either by using Swift in the app or by enabling the Embedded Content Contains Swift Code build setting.