Allow podspecs to indicate that they include categories

[lukeredpath]

If a library includes Objective-C categories and requires them to function correctly, we should be able to specify this in the podspec and have the ObjC and all_load linker flags added automatically.

E.g.:

We can specify which system frameworks are required by adding them to OTHER_LDFLAGS but as this is a common case I'd like to see this as a natural part of the podspec file.

Something like:

Pod::Spec.new do
  ...
  requires_objc_categories true
end

[alloy]

I’m wondering what the downsides are to just always adding the -ObjC -all_load flags instead of adding a method for it. Any idea if it could be a problem?

[alloy]

So apparently it will make the binary a bit fatter http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1490/_index.html. Now the question is, how much does it add? And will most libPods builds have some dependency that enables it anyway, in which case (unless the size is a real issue) we might still be able to enable it by default anyways.

[alloy]

Almost all specs add these flags atm, so I’m going to make this the standard.

[angelolloqui]

There is a downside that we are facing now with the all_load flag. Fat binaries including armv6 and armv7 do not work properly (duplicated class linking errors).

Please, reopen #39

[milesmatthias]

Has this issue been resolved for other people? I'm seeing it again even though I'm inheriting linking flags from CocoaPods...

[seivan]

Same here

[rivera-ernesto]

I think the original proposal was good: If a Pod specifically sets requires_objc_categories, it would be easy for Cocoapods to set -force_load Pod-<specific_library>.a in a more fine-grained way than just setting -all_load for all libraries.

Also the fact that most projects follow the bad practice of blindly adding -all_load shouldn't be a reason for CocoaPods to do the same. We can do better ;)

[seivan]

I just want to clarify that if anyone else like myself have had any recent issues with like this https://t.co/YgP1Z8Xdqg
then that was because of 5.0.1 being a total douche.
Get 5.0.2

[jasperblues]

Just installed a library via CocoaPods, and had to add the all_load flag to my project manually. . . Running Xcode 5.0.2

[fabiopelosin]

@jasperblues Very strange could you replicate in a demo project and open an issue referencing it?

[jasperblues]

I have a demo project here: https://github.com/jasperblues/Typhoon-example, however I've since updated the .podspec to include:

spec.xcconfig = { 'HEADER_SEARCH_PATHS' => '$(SDKROOT)/usr/include/libxml2', 'OTHER_LDFLAGS' => '-all_load' }

However, in that project if you set the version of 'Typhoon' to 1.5.3 or earlier, you should be able to observe the issue.

Is this enough info? Can you reproduce? Do you want to reopen this ticket or open a new one?

[fabiopelosin]

@jasperblues It would be great if you could open a new one.