Adding an Xcode subproject: Shouldn't all the source files get copied?

Question

I am manually adding the SQLite.swift subproject to my project. As the directions indicated, I copied the .xcodeproj file to my project. This allows me see all the source files (unlike this SO question).

Everything seemed like it was working fine. However, I discovered that the source files of that subproject were not copied to my project. They are still in original location where I downloaded them. Is this by design? What if I want to share my project source code with other people in the future? They won't have the subproject source that is necessary for my project to work.

If I do need to copy the subproject source to my project, then how do I do that?

Answer 1

Add it to your filesystem-structure first. For example by pressing "Show in Finder" on the "Chimee"-project which will lead you to the folder it's located in. Then copy the SQLite-project structure in there.

Afterwards you can then drag&drop the xcodeproj into your project which will then still link to its original path, but as it's now inside your project-structure isn't a problem anymore.

I guess that this is by design, because when you try it via Add files to "YourProject" you can select the Copy items if needed-option but it will still not get copied (only with .xcodeproj-files, it works with all other filetypes)

Answer 2

After doing more research, I now feel that using a dependency manager (like CocoaPods or Carthage) is a better option than manually adding the framework to the project.

• This will allow easier updating in the future.
• Github source code sharing and App Store submission issues have already been considered.

Using Carthage is not too difficult if you follow this excellent guide: Carthage Tutorial: Getting Started

Notes

• Delete the framework files that you manually copied in before installing the framework with Carthage.
• I will leave @TMob's answer as accepted for now, but I am no longer pursuing that route.