What are Embedded Binaries in Xcode?

xcode xcode6 embed alamofire
Doug Richardson picture Doug Richardson · May 11, 2015 · Viewed 37k times · Source

I'm using Alamofire in a Swift project, and part of their manual installation instructions are to add Alamofire under Embedded Binaries in the General tab for my application target.

enter image description here

What are Embedded Binaries?

Answer

Mark Szymczyk picture Mark Szymczyk · May 11, 2015

Embedded binaries are binary files that are copied to your application bundle when you build the project. Use embedded binaries when your application relies on third-party frameworks so people can use your application without needing those frameworks installed on their machine. Embedded binaries keep users from having to manually install third-party frameworks. Your application uses the framework you embedded.

In your Alamofire example your application relies on Alamofire. If you didn't embed the Alamofire framework, nobody would be able to use your application unless they installed Alamofire manually. By embedding Alamofire with your application everyone can run your application.

Related questions

Xcode 6 Bug: Unknown class in Interface Builder file

I upgraded to Xcode 6 beta 4 and now my App continuously crashes with the message Unknown class X in Interface Builder file. It crashes because supposedly Xcode can't find my custom classes that I have linked in my Storyboard but it …

Read More
Change tab bar item selected color in a storyboard

I want to change my tab bar items to be pink when selected instead of the default blue. How can i accomplish this using the storyboard editor in Xcode 6? Here are my current setting which are not working, the blue …

Read More
Xcode 6 iPhone Simulator Application Support location

In Xcode 6, I have an app I'm using Core Data in, but there is no folder in Application Support for the iOS 8 iPhone Simulator. Where are my files and Core Data sqlite database being stored?

Read More