The best way to build iPhone/iPad static libraries?
- by Derek Clarkson
Hi everyone,
I have a couple of static Phone/iPad libraries I an working on. The problem I am looking for advise on is the best way to package the libraries. My objective is to make it easy to use the libraries in other projects and include the correct one in a build with minimal problems.
To make it more interesting I currently build 4 versions of each library as follows
armv6/armv7 release (devices)
i386 release (simulator)
armv6/armv7 debug (devices)
i386 debug (simulator)
The difference between the release and debug versions is that the debug versions contain a lot of NSLog(...) code which enables people to see whats going on internally as an aid to debugging.
Currently when I build the whole projects I arrange the libraries into two directories like this:
release
lib-device.a
lib-simulator.a
debug
lib-device.a
lib-simulator.a
This works ok except that when include in projects, both paths are added to the library search path and switching a target from one to the other is a pain. Or alternatively I end up with two targets.
The alternative I am thinking of is to change the directories like this:
release
device
lib.a
simulator
lib.a
debug
device
lib.a
simulator
lib.a
In playing with XCode is appears that all xcode uses the lbrary references of a project for is to get the name of the library file, which it then looks up in the library paths. Thus by parameterising the library path with the current built type and target device, I can effectively auto switch.
What do you guys think? Is there a better way to do this?
ciao
Derek
