I am building the static iOS framework upon multiple libraries in Xcode. One of them should be the card.io. I cannot use cocoapods or carthage. So far I imported .frameworks within the .framework and it works pretty well. However card.io uses static library (.a file) with bunch of headers. It works well in dynamic type of .frameworks (or iOS app project) but in static project I get these errors on including of the .a files:
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: can't locate file for: -lCardIO
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: file: -lCardIO is not an object file (not allowed in a library)
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: can't locate file for: -lopencv_core
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: file: -lopencv_core is not an object file (not allowed in a library)
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: can't locate file for: -lopencv_imgproc
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: file: -lopencv_imgproc is not an object file (not allowed in a library)
Regarding these errors I downloaded the source codes of card.io and it looks that there is dynamic .framework target waiting for build. I tried to use this one instead of .a files and headers - so my project at least can be builded. Because the card.io does not contatin architectures for simulator (which, by the way, it should with this release 5.2.2) I am not able to test it in unit tests, so when I test this solution on device I get this error:
dyld: Library not loaded: @rpath/CardIO.framework/CardIO
Referenced from: /var/containers/Bundle/Application/55D3AF7F-83F4-4B3D-A667-0FCO93CCC441/App/AppDemo
Reason: no suitable image found.
So far my knowledge+google+stackoverflow is stuck here, because it looks that xcode does not support the .framework within .framework this way.
To this moment I spent two days with this "issue", so the question is: Does exist any solution for including dynamic library into static framework? Or any solution to include card.io into static framework?
EDIT:
Well actually the solution was more stupid than I would think (as always). Just to include card.io in the .framework go to "Project Description -> Build Settings -> Library search paths" and type the path where should xcode look for the libraries. This approach solves the first one issue of this post - this means the implementation of the .a libraries and headers. At this moment I cannot guarantee it will work in releases based on my framework so I will update this post to confirm it later. I hope it helps someone...