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I'm developing a closed source framework, that will be distributed as an XCFramework using SPM. This is possible thanks to the new binaryTarget from swift tools 5.3. This works fine until the framework has dependencies.

416 - Binary frameworks states ... binary frameworks cannot depend on Packages., but this was before 5.3 and binary targets were not possible at all. On the Swift forums there is a suggested workaround that basically revolves around adding a dummy target that will list the dependencies (binaryTarget initialiser doesn't have a dependencies parameter).

The workaround works until the dependency has its own dependencies. For example Lottie which doesn't have any dependencies works fine, but Auth0 which has quite a few, fails with errors Missing required modules: 'Auth0ObjectiveC', 'SimpleKeychain'. Even adding Auth0 directly to the client project using SPM doesn't fix these errors.

Here is my Package.swift which works partially.

// swift-tools-version:5.3
import PackageDescription
let package = Package(
    name: "MyFramework",
    platforms: [
        .iOS(.v13)
    ],
    products: [
        .library(name: "MyFramework", targets: ["MyFramework", "MyFramework-Dependencies"])
    ],
    dependencies: [
        .package(name: "Auth0", url: "https://github.com/auth0/Auth0.swift.git", from: "1.30.1")
    ],
    targets: [
        .binaryTarget(name: "MyFramework", path: "MyFramework.xcframework"),
        .target(name: "MyFramework-Dependencies", dependencies: ["Auth0"], path: "MyFramework-Dependencies")
    ])

It it possible to actually have a binary framework depend on a package? If not, what would be the proper way distribute a dependency for a binary framework?

Nikola Lajic
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  • Did you find an adequate solution to this problem? I am wondering the same. – IgorGanapolsky Jun 09 '21 at 19:01
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    @IgorGanapolsky we've extracted the part that relies on these dependencies into a separate standard SPM package, and then request 3rd party developers to inject it into the main framework. – Nikola Lajic Jun 10 '21 at 10:15

1 Answers1

9

We've solved this problem by creating a wrapper target that depends on both the binary framework and other dependencies. See an example here.

ncooke3
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Paul Beusterien
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    Sorry for the late response, holidays and vacation. Based on what you posted I've updated `Package.swift` so that `MyFramework` has a `MyFrameworkTarget` target which depends on `MyFrameworkWrapper`, which depends on `Auth0` and `MyFrameworkBinary`. Importing `MyFrameworkTarget` doesn't throw any errors, but it doesn't expose anything from `MyFrameworkBinary`. The same goes if I try to import `MyFrameworkWrapper`. Importing `MyFrameworkBinary` throws the same error I posted in the question. Is there a step I'm missing? – Nikola Lajic Jan 12 '21 at 15:58
  • I had face same kind of issue and followed this approach. But still I am getting a build error due to unable to link sub dependency. If someone has an idea why please have a look on my detailed question. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71824920/add-dependencies-to-binary-targets-in-swift-package-manager – smartsanja Apr 11 '22 at 08:52