Reduce Three20 Compile Time for iOS (Making Static Libraries)
February 18th, 2012
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In using Three20 with Xcode 4, I have found life to be a little more difficult than in Xcode 3.
Project changes have required me to fiddle with the project/target compile settings in order to get my project to build correctly, often seeing the dreaded “Three20/Three20.h” file not found error, and not being able to build for archive have all been recurring issues that I’ve faced while developing some pretty simple iOS apps utilizing the Three20 project.
Finally, when the project is building correctly, I spend almost all my compile time building all the Three20 libraries. In search of a better way I stumbled upon a stackoverflow question, and then later on a blog post that have essentially gotten rid of all these hassles for me.
Step 1: How to build any library for all platforms
- Open an existing static library project.
- Select the project file on the top, and then select the target you want to build.
- Go into the Build Phases section
- Add a new “Run Script” build phase
- In this phase, paste the following script:
# Version 2.0 (updated for Xcode 4, with some fixes)
# Changes:
# - Works with xcode 4, even when running xcode 3 projects (Workarounds for apple bugs)
# - Faster / better: only runs lipo once, instead of once per recursion
# - Added some debugging statemetns that can be switched on/off by changing the DEBUG_THIS_SCRIPT variable to "true"
# - Fixed some typos
#
# Purpose:
# Create a static library for iPhone from within XCode
# Because Apple staff DELIBERATELY broke Xcode to make this impossible from the GUI (Xcode 3.2.3 specifically states this in the Release notes!)
# ...no, I don't understand why they did this!
#
# Author: Adam Martin - http://twitter.com/redglassesapps
# Based on: original script from Eonil (main changes: Eonil's script WILL NOT WORK in Xcode GUI - it WILL CRASH YOUR COMPUTER)
#
# More info: see this Stack Overflow question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3520977/build-fat-static-library-device-simulator-using-xcode-and-sdk-4
#################[ Tests: helps workaround any future bugs in Xcode ]########
#
DEBUG_THIS_SCRIPT="false"
if [ $DEBUG_THIS_SCRIPT = "true" ]
then
echo "########### TESTS #############"
echo "Use the following variables when debugging this script; note that they may change on recursions"
echo "BUILD_DIR = $BUILD_DIR"
echo "BUILD_ROOT = $BUILD_ROOT"
echo "CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR = $CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR"
echo "BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR = $BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR"
echo "CONFIGURATION_TEMP_DIR = $CONFIGURATION_TEMP_DIR"
echo "TARGET_BUILD_DIR = $TARGET_BUILD_DIR"
fi
#####################[ part 1 ]##################
# First, work out the BASESDK version number (NB: Apple ought to report this, but they hide it)
# (incidental: searching for substrings in sh is a nightmare! Sob)
SDK_VERSION=$(echo ${SDK_NAME} | grep -o '.\{3\}$')
# Next, work out if we're in SIM or DEVICE
if [ ${PLATFORM_NAME} = "iphonesimulator" ]
then
OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD=iphoneos${SDK_VERSION}
else
OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD=iphonesimulator${SDK_VERSION}
fi
echo "XCode has selected SDK: ${PLATFORM_NAME} with version: ${SDK_VERSION} (although back-targetting: ${IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET})"
echo "...therefore, OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD = ${OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD}"
#
#####################[ end of part 1 ]##################
#####################[ part 2 ]##################
#
# IF this is the original invocation, invoke WHATEVER other builds are required
#
# Xcode is already building ONE target...
#
# ...but this is a LIBRARY, so Apple is wrong to set it to build just one.
# ...we need to build ALL targets
# ...we MUST NOT re-build the target that is ALREADY being built: Xcode WILL CRASH YOUR COMPUTER if you try this (infinite recursion!)
#
#
# So: build ONLY the missing platforms/configurations.
if [ "true" == ${ALREADYINVOKED:-false} ]
then
echo "RECURSION: I am NOT the root invocation, so I'm NOT going to recurse"
else
# CRITICAL:
# Prevent infinite recursion (Xcode sucks)
export ALREADYINVOKED="true"
echo "RECURSION: I am the root ... recursing all missing build targets NOW..."
echo "RECURSION: ...about to invoke: xcodebuild -configuration \"${CONFIGURATION}\" -target \"${TARGET_NAME}\" -sdk \"${OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD}\" ${ACTION} RUN_CLANG_STATIC_ANALYZER=NO"
xcodebuild -configuration "${CONFIGURATION}" -target "${TARGET_NAME}" -sdk "${OTHER_SDK_TO_BUILD}" ${ACTION} RUN_CLANG_STATIC_ANALYZER=NO BUILD_DIR="${BUILD_DIR}" BUILD_ROOT="${BUILD_ROOT}"
ACTION="build"
#Merge all platform binaries as a fat binary for each configurations.
# Calculate where the (multiple) built files are coming from:
CURRENTCONFIG_DEVICE_DIR=${SYMROOT}/${CONFIGURATION}-iphoneos
CURRENTCONFIG_SIMULATOR_DIR=${SYMROOT}/${CONFIGURATION}-iphonesimulator
echo "Taking device build from: ${CURRENTCONFIG_DEVICE_DIR}"
echo "Taking simulator build from: ${CURRENTCONFIG_SIMULATOR_DIR}"
CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR=${SYMROOT}/${CONFIGURATION}-universal
echo "...I will output a universal build to: ${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}"
# ... remove the products of previous runs of this script
# NB: this directory is ONLY created by this script - it should be safe to delete!
#rm -rf "${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}"
#mkdir "${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}"
#
echo "lipo: for current configuration (${CONFIGURATION}) creating output file: ${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}/${EXECUTABLE_NAME}"
lipo -create -output "${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}/${EXECUTABLE_NAME}" "${CURRENTCONFIG_DEVICE_DIR}/${EXECUTABLE_NAME}" "${CURRENTCONFIG_SIMULATOR_DIR}/${EXECUTABLE_NAME}"
#########
#
# Added: StackOverflow suggestion to also copy "include" files
# (untested, but should work OK)
#
if [ -d "${CURRENTCONFIG_DEVICE_DIR}/usr/local/include" ]
then
mkdir -p "${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}/usr/local/include"
# * needs to be outside the double quotes?
cp "${CURRENTCONFIG_DEVICE_DIR}/usr/local/include/"* "${CREATING_UNIVERSAL_DIR}/usr/local/include"
fi
fi
The following code, which was copied directly from the blog post linked above, tells Xcode to compile all the targets for both Device and Simulator. The resulting output will be a .a library file for use in other projects.
Applying this to Three20
- Go into {Three20 Root Directory}/src/Three20 and open Three20.xcodeproj
- Select the Three20 target and add the above script into the appropriate build phase
- Nothing needs to be done to the “Three20UnitTests” target, we won’t be using it for anything.
- Expand the Dependencies folder for your Three20 project, in the files list on the left side of Xcode
- Add the same script phase you did before in all of these dependent projects.
- Do this for every dependency project. If you don’t do this, Xcode will produce all .a libraries, but only the main Three20 library will be created for all devices and they all need to be created for all devices.
- Once you have added the script build phase to all projects and dependencies, build the project (and be patient).
Giving Due Credit
Had I not stumbled onto Christos Sotiriou‘s blog post I probably could never have figured this out from end to end on my own. He even offers a direct download to compiled libraries and headers if you want to just get up and running.