How to use static library and module map file with Swift?

Rob N picture Rob N · Sep 26, 2017 · Viewed 19.1k times · Source

I'm trying to include a 3rd party static library in my Swift project. I have these two files, among a few others.

GoogleConversionTrackingSDK/ACTReporter.h GoogleConversionTrackingSDK/libGoogleConversionTracking.a

I added the .a file to the target's "Linked Frameworks and Library" section. I then created a module.map file in my project, like this:

module GoogleConversionTracking {
    header "../../Libs/GoogleConversionTrackingSDK/ACTReporter.h"    
    export *
}

And in Swift files I can now refer to it:

import GoogleConversionTracking

But I get an error at link time:

ld: library not found for -lGoogleConversionTracking
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
note: library not found for -lGoogleConversionTracking

How do you fix this? I would like to not use a bridging header, but instead use these module definition files, if possible.

Answer

Ian Bytchek picture Ian Bytchek · Sep 28, 2017

Module map is my synonym for trouble! Bridging headers suck, but they just work in most cases. Anyways, make sure to:

  • Configure SWIFT_INCLUDE_PATHS – a list of paths to be searched by the Swift compiler for additional Swift modules. This tells Xcode where your module maps are.
  • Configure LIBRARY_SEARCH_PATHS – this is a list of paths to folders to be searched by the linker for libraries used by the product. Xcode still needs to know where binaries for your modules are.

Also, you probably want to use the umbrella header, not just header, see documentation. I'd also suggest using modulemap extension, not sure if module.map makes difference, but that's how I remember seeing and using it in most projects.

Omar Abdelhafith has a wicked blog post on this matter and it also helps to see how others do it when dealing with those kind of things.