Organising frameworks for client, server, and plugins

Question

I am working on a large project that comprises a server, some plugins for controlling devices that can be loaded into the server process, and also clients that can connect to the server. I am looking for the best practice for structuring the framework(s) that will ultimately need to exist.

There are header files that are shared between client, server, and plugins, and some headers that are specific to each aspect of the system. Sometimes headers are only shared between say client and server, or server and plugin. Similarly, there is common code that can be shared between all three aspects of the project, and also code that would only be needed by one particular aspect.

When the project is finished, we will need to release a client application and plugin developer API for third parties to develop against.

I am not sure how to properly structure the Frameworks that would be needed to support this.

Do I need to have 2 separate frameworks? Or can I have 1 framework that includes all the headers and provides 2 separate dylibs?

If I need to have 2 separate frameworks, what do I do with header files that are shared between all aspects of the system? I do not want to copy them into each framework to avoid possible problems with versioning.

Would a 3rd headers-only Framework be a reasonable option?

Can anyone recommend a best practice for structuring this kind of thing with Frameworks on OS X?

Answer 1

Framework = library + headers for that library

Each framework only needs to include header files for the interfaces you want to expose. Even if common headers were used to build all three frameworks, you are not obliged to bundle them.

A 3 framework approach would be fine, even if one of the frameworks only bundles common headers and no library at all. Example: if you install Qt on your Mac, you will see it split across many frameworks, but headers are never duplicated among them. There are also some frameworks that only contain headers and no code (QtScript.framework, for instance).