iOS undefined symbols of eaaccessory in static library

Question

I have created a ios static library which basically uses external accessory framework to talk to a custom bluetooth device, I am using iOS 7 + Xcode 5. When I try to use this library in my test project I get linker errors for unknown symbols of eaaccessory. If I add eaaccessory framework to my test project every works as expected.

I was wondering can we embed eaaccessory framework in our static library? So that users of our library don't have to add eaaccessory framework in there projects.

Another strange thing I have noticed is my static library compiles and links perfectly ok even without adding eaaccessory framework to my library project.

Finally my problem is I have to add eaaccessory framework to my test project to link correctly, no matter whether I add eaaccessory to my library project or not.

Answer 1

No. Apple-provided libraries are dynamically linked and cannot be statically compiled into your project.

Answer 2

When the linker builds a static library it does not have to resolve all symbols in the library. If you link with a static library it will import symbols from that library to the library it is building. It will not import symbols from a framework as they are meant to be loaded dynamically at runtime.

You cannot embed parts of a system framework in your static library. It could very well be that importing functions from a system framework into a static library instead of loading them at runtime would break them.