3rd party static libraries

[PanayotCankov]

We need to support static libraries added in a NativeScript for iOS project.

One of the use cases is adopting existing codebase that is not available in source form.
We had request for the MagTek hardware support. They do distribute officially a static library.

We are not certain for implementation:

1. Ideally the NativeScript users will use a library add like command with the lib*.a file, point the headers that declare the exposed APIs and provide additional flags if necessary. Since static libraries does not declare their dependencies the developers may also need to resolve them.
2. As an alternative we can let the clients set up the Xcode project and link the library themselves as well as set header search paths, and we can try to simply generate metadata for these headers and expect that the static libraries are setup properly.
3. We can also investigate if we can provide tooling to wrap static libraries in shared frameworks that work with the already existing tooling.

Create small examples using:

• Static Library
• Static Framework - 3rd party static libraries: Example with Google Maps SDK for iOS #141
• Cocoa pods example - 3rd party static libraries: Example with CocoaPods #144
• Consume Objective-C Code in the Project - 3rd party static libraries: Example to Consume Objective-C Code in the Project #145

Also we should keep an eye on this issue, and try to satisfy its prerequisites. (pods for example)

Add out of the box support for:

• Consuming Objective-C Code in the Project - 3rd party static libraries: Integrate Objective-C Code with the CLI Plugins Mechanism #146
• Static Framework added through Plugins
• Write an article how to wrap static library into a framework - 3rd party static libraries: Integrate Static Frameworks with the CLI Plugins Mechanism #147
• Cocoa pods added through Plugins - 3rd party static libraries: Integrate Cocoapods with the CLI Plugins Mechanism #94

News/Rumors
Google is embracing CocoaPods to bring its services to iOS developers

[jasssonpet]

We also need to take care of symbol stripping.

[raazo]

Hi Pana,

We have a similiar request for Honeywell Captuvo Sled hardware, please see following link for more info.

https://www.honeywellaidc.com/Captuvo/software/CaptuvoSDK_2.19.742.zip

we require following to use

/SDK/Include/Captuvo.h
/SDK/Lib/libCaptuvoSDK.a

and

ExternalAccessory.framework

Should you require any more info, please let me know.

[PanayotCankov]

We have received a question about firebase:
https://www.firebase.com/docs/ios/
It looks like it is distributed as a static iOS framework (similar to the NativeScript.framework).
The framework contains the tree:

$ tree Firebase.framework
Firebase.framework
├── Firebase
├── Headers
└── Versions
    ├── A
    │   ├── Firebase
    │   └── Headers
    │       ├── FAuthData.h
    │       ├── FAuthType.h
    │       ├── FDataSnapshot.h
    │       ├── FEventType.h
    │       ├── FMutableData.h
    │       ├── FQuery.h
    │       ├── FTransactionResult.h
    │       ├── Firebase.h
    │       └── FirebaseServerValue.h
    └── Current

The Firebase.h looks like an umbrella header. The Firebase is a fat binary:

$ lipo -info Firebase
Architectures in the fat file: Firebase are: armv7 armv7s i386 x86_64 arm64 

[leandroz]

Google Maps iOS SDK is a static framework too. What is the difference between static and dynamic that makes NativeScript not being able to handle the static ones? just curiosity to learn how things are working.

[PanayotCankov]

Shared frameworks

• Can be used in iOS8+
• Have information about their dependencies
• Are linked dynamically and need to be signed just like the app executable
• Can be shared across extensions
• Are not so popular

Static frameworks

• Are linked statically.
• Some C symbols are stripped and can not be used dynamically from JavaScript.
• Dependencies must be provided by hand. (e.g. SQLite)
• For static libraries (if not grouped in a framework) headers must be provided by hand.
• Are overall harder to integrate automatically

NativeScript for iOS does support static libraries and frameworks internally. The problem is that the generation of metadata, additional flags, linking problems etc. made the shared frameworks a better candidate to be officially supported for v1.

Static frameworks and libraries and scheduled for v1.1 and will come along with a packaging mechanism. The additional dependencies and flags will probably be expressed in a package.json.

Meanwhile any additional use cases for static libraries are welcomed, since there are multiple ways they are currently distributed.

[PanayotCankov]

Here is the Google Maps SDK for iOS static framework. Its pretty much the same as the Firebase.

[leandroz]

Thanks for the comments @PanayotCankov !