Building an XCFramework on Kotlin Multiplatform from Kotlin 1.5.30
A few days ago, Kotlin 1.5.30 has been released. One of the features contained in the release is the official support for XCFrameworks on Kotlin Multiplatform.
XCFramework is a binary that can contain multiple platform-specific variants (even for iOS and macOS at the same time). It has been introduced by Apple during the WWDC 2019 as a replacement for FatFrameworks.
Before Kotlin 1.5.30, an XCFramework could be created only by running the xcrun command that will pack the frameworks for every different required platform into an XCFramework.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article to show how to create two Gradle tasks (buildDebugXCFramework and buildReleaseXCFramework) to automate the building of an XCFramework. With Kotlin 1.5.30 these tasks are not necessary anymore and in this article, I will show you how to replace the custom tasks with the official ones.
Build an XCFramework with Kotlin 1.5.30
To start using XCFrameworks, it is necessary to create an XCFramework object inside the kotlin block of the build.gradle.kts file. Then, every Apple target should be added to that object.
import org.jetbrains.kotlin.gradle.plugin.mpp.apple.XCFramework
val libName = “LibraryName”
kotlin {
val xcFramework = XCFramework(libName)
ios {
binaries.framework(libName) {
xcFramework.add(this)
}
}
...
}
After declaring the XCFramework object, three new tasks are added:
- assemble${libName}XCFramework
- assemble${libName}DebugXCFramework
- assemble${libName}ReleaseXCFramework
The first one will create both the release and the debug version of the XCFramework, while the others will create only the requested variant.
The XCFrameworks are located in the XCFrameworks folder inside the build folder. There will be a subfolder for each of the built variants.
.
├── build
├── XCFrameworks
├── debug
│ └── LibraryName.xcframework
└── release
└── LibraryName.xcframework
Publish an XCFramework
The newly built XCFramework can now be distributed. The distribution can be archived in different ways: for example in a CocoaPods repository, in the Swift Package Manager or with Carthage. Since I’m familiar with CocoaPods, that’s what I’ve always used.
To make the publishing process as streamlined as possible, I’ve written a bunch of Gradle tasks to automatically build and publish through git the Debug and Release version of the XCFramework. For the details and to understand how the task works, I suggest you give a look at this article that I wrote a few months ago.
These tasks are the same used in the article that I wrote a few weeks ago about XCFrameworks. But they must be updated, since the tasks to build the XCFramework are changed.
Publish Debug Version:
register("publishDevFramework") {
description = "Publish iOs framework to the Cocoa Repo"
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "checkout", "develop").standardOutput
}
dependsOn("assemble${libName}DebugXCFramework")
doLast {
copy {
from("$buildDir/XCFrameworks/debug")
into("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
}
val dir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest/$libName.podspec")
val tempFile = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest/$libName.podspec.new")
val reader = dir.bufferedReader()
val writer = tempFile.bufferedWriter()
var currentLine: String?
while (reader.readLine().also { currLine -> currentLine = currLine } != null) {
if (currentLine?.startsWith("s.version") == true) {
writer.write("s.version = \"${libVersionName}\"" + System.lineSeparator())
} else {
writer.write(currentLine + System.lineSeparator())
}
}
writer.close()
reader.close()
val successful = tempFile.renameTo(dir)
if (successful) {
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine(
"git",
"add",
"."
).standardOutput
}
val dateFormatter = SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy - HH:mm", Locale.getDefault())
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine(
"git",
"commit",
"-m",
"\"New dev release: ${libVersionName}-${dateFormatter.format(Date())}\""
).standardOutput
}
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "push", "origin", "develop").standardOutput
}
}
}
}
The task now depends on the assemble${libName}DebugXCFramework task, which is officially provided by Kotlin. Then, the only thing to do is to move the XCFramework from the build folder to the CocoaPod repository.
copy {
from("$buildDir/XCFrameworks/debug")
into("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
}
The task that publishes the release version of the XCFramework is pretty much the same as the debug one, except for the task to build the framework, that is assemble${libName}ReleaseXCFramework, and the location in the build folder:
register("publishFramework") {
description = "Publish iOs framework to the Cocoa Repo"
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "checkout", "master").standardOutput
}
// Create Release Framework for Xcode
dependsOn("assemble${libName}ReleaseXCFramework")
// Replace
doLast {
copy {
from("$buildDir/XCFrameworks/release")
into("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
}
val dir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest/$libName.podspec")
val tempFile = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest/$libName.podspec.new")
val reader = dir.bufferedReader()
val writer = tempFile.bufferedWriter()
var currentLine: String?
while (reader.readLine().also { currLine -> currentLine = currLine } != null) {
if (currentLine?.startsWith("s.version") == true) {
writer.write("s.version = \"${libVersionName}\"" + System.lineSeparator())
} else {
writer.write(currentLine + System.lineSeparator())
}
}
writer.close()
reader.close()
val successful = tempFile.renameTo(dir)
if (successful) {
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine(
"git",
"add",
"."
).standardOutput
}
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "commit", "-m", "\"New release: ${libVersionName}\"").standardOutput
}
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "tag", libVersionName).standardOutput
}
project.exec {
workingDir = File("$rootDir/../kmp-xcframework-dest")
commandLine("git", "push", "origin", "master", "--tags").standardOutput
}
}
}
}
And that’s it! With these little modifications, it is possible to use the official Kotlin support for XCFrameworks and automatically publish them in a CocoaPod repository.
On GitHub, I’ve updated the sample project with the new tasks on the kotlin-1.5.30 branch. Instead, if you are interested in XCFramework support before Kotlin 1.5.30, you can look at the pre-kotlin-1.5.30 branch. And to see what are the changes between the two branches, you can look at this commit.