config-file is merged into wrong *-Info.plist when other plugin has podspec.

[jamesyoon11]

Bug Report

The config-file in plug.xml is merged into wrong *-info.plist when it has installed Pods.

Here is the step to reproduce

npx cordova create SampleApp com.sample.app SampleApp
cd SampleApp/
npx cordova platform add ios
npx cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-facebook4
npx cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-background-mode

cordova-plugin-facebook4 installs cocoaPods Facebook SDK.

cordova-plugin-background-mode has UIBackgroundMode config-file:

<config-file target="*-Info.plist" parent="UIBackgroundModes">
            <array>
                <string>audio</string>
            </array>
</config-file>

It should have merged into SampleApp-Info.plist but it merged into Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-SampleApp/Pods-SampleApp-Info.plist.

However, if the project name is lower than 'Pods' (ex 'MyApp'), the issue does not happen.

[EvelinJK]

This should theoretically have been fixed with version 4.0.0, released on March 26th, 2020.
See "GH-124" here: https://cordova.apache.org/announcements/2020/03/30/cordova-common-release-4.0.0.html

It only happens if you use CocoaPods version greater 1.6.

When the target is specified as *-Info.plist and your app name starts with a letter that comes after "P", it will find the wrong .plist file and write into that instead of the correct one. That's because there's also a "YourProjectName-Info.plist" in the "Pods" folder, which will be found first in this case.

Also see the issue where the bug was originally identified: #88

[raphinesse]

@jamesyoon11 As @EvelinJK mentioned, this should be fixed in cordova-common@4.0.0. Now I am not sure if cordova-lib or cordova-ios performs the merging. So could you try and see if you can reproduce the bug using cordova@nightly and cordova-ios@6 (or nightly too)?

[dpa99c]

This is still an issue with cordova-common@4.0.1 / cordova-ios@6:

If the app <name> in config.xml starts with a name which places it before Pods in the alphabet, then the issue manifests.

I've created a repo to a reproducible test case: https://github.com/dpa99c/cordova-common-issue-144

It contains 2 test plugins - both of which use a <podspec> to add an arbitrary cocoapod to the project and both of which insert values into the app .plist.

First clone the repo:

% git clone https://github.com/dpa99c/cordova-common-issue-144 && cd cordova-common-issue-144

Now checkout the branch which contains the app name "Podr" (one letter before "Pods" in the alphabet):

% git checkout Podr

Now let's add cordova-ios@6 platform:

% cordova platform add ios

And we confirm we're using the expected versions of cordova-ios and cordova-common:

% npm list cordova-common
helloworld@1.0.0 /projects/@scratch/temp/cordova-common-issue-144
└─┬ cordova-ios@6.0.0
  └── cordova-common@4.0.1 

We're expecting to see that both our plugins add their entries to the app info plist.
Because our app name is "Podr", our app list will be platforms/ios/Podr/Podr-Info.plist.

So if we search for our first plugin entry:

% grep -r "TestPluginA-present" platforms/ios | grep plist

We should see:

platforms/ios/Podr/Podr-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>

Same for our second plugin:

% grep -r "TestPluginB-present" platforms/ios | grep plist		
platforms/ios/Podr/Podr-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginB-present</string>

Now checkout the "Podt" branch (one letter after "Pods" in the alphabet)

% git checkout Podt

Remove and re-add the ios platform:

% cordova platform rm ios --nosave && cordova platform add ios --nosave

This time when we search for the first plugin plist entry, the result is unexpected:

% grep -r "TestPluginA-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Podt/Podt-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>
platforms/ios/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-Podt/Pods-Podt-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>

We see it's in both the app plist as expected, but also in the Pods plist.

And the second plugin:

% grep -r "TestPluginB-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-Podt/Pods-Podt-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginB-present</string>

Is only present in the Pods plist - it's missing from the app plist.

To confirm that the <podspec> in the first plugin is responsible for this, check out the "plugin-A-no-pods" branch in which the <podspec> is commented out in the plugin.xml of the first plugin:

% git checkout plugin-A-no-pods

The app name is "Z" on this branch, which of course comes after "Pods" in the alphabet, so we'd expect to see the issue manifest (you can confirm this by checking out the "Z" branch which has the same app name but no commented out <podspec>).

Remove and re-add the ios platform:

% cordova platform rm ios --nosave && cordova platform add ios --nosave

As before, the first plugin entry is present in both plists:

% grep -r "TestPluginA-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Z/Z-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>
platforms/ios/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-Z/Pods-Z-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>

But the second plugin entry is now also present in both plists:

% grep -r "TestPluginB-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Z/Z-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginB-present</string>
platforms/ios/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-Z/Pods-Z-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginB-present</string>

This issue is affecting a production project of mine, so I'm keen to find a fix (currently my workaround is to manually move the missing keys from the Pods plist to the app plist).
If I'm able to track down/fix the issue, I'll submit a PR.

[dpa99c]

Oops, that was implicit - didn't mean to close without review

[dpa99c]

The above PR fixes this issue. To confirm, run the following test (continuing on from my test scenarios above):

% git checkout Podt-fixed

This checks out a branch where the app name is still "Podt" but it references my fork of cordova-ios which in turn references my fork on cordova-common which contains the fix.

Re-add the platform using my fork:

% cordova platform rm ios --nosave && cordova platform add ios --nosave

Now search for the plugin plist strings:

% grep -r "TestPluginA-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Podt/Podt-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginA-present</string>

% grep -r "TestPluginB-present" platforms/ios | grep plist
platforms/ios/Podt/Podt-Info.plist:	<string>TestPluginB-present</string>

They are now in the expected app plist location.