I maintain a library that has thus far used Cocoapods to manage dependencies and also distribute an xcframework of the library. I'd now like to also distribute the same library through Swift Packages but am running into issues.
I'm using the same xcframework in a local Swift Package and have added all the necessary dependencies to Package.swift, but when I attempt to add this Swift Package to a test app, the app will build correctly but fail at runtime due to a missing .framework file for a dependency I'll just call THE_DEPENDENCY:
dyld[61483]: Library not loaded: @rpath/THE_DEPENDENCY.framework/THE_DEPENDENCY
Referenced from: <75074516-C1CD-3251-8807-94A7502176A7> /Users/ME/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MY_TEST_APP-bwfsfwjjnagdurdnjrhhdppgitvr/Build/Products/Debug-appletvsimulator/MY_LIBRARY.framework/MY_LIBRARY
Reason: tried: '/Users/ME/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/MY_TEST_APP-bwfsfwjjnagdurdnjrhhdppgitvr/Build/Products/Debug-appletvsimulator/THE_DEPENDENCY.framework/THE_DEPENDENCY' (no such file)
Indeed, there is no THE_DEPENDENCY.framework file anywhere, it is only present in a version of the test app that uses Cocoapods. As you can see, the reference to this file arises from MY_LIBRARY, and in MY_LIBRARY.xcodeproj I can see there is a reference to THE_DEPENDENCY.framework, which appears as a consequence of running pod install. Thus, it looks to me like the .framework file appears either as part of Cocoapods dependency injection, or perhaps as a consequence of how that dependency is distributed through Cocoapods. I'm forced to install pods during my build process because, as I understand it, all dependencies must be available during the archiving process to avoid compilation errors.
If the dependencies must be available during archiving, but adding the dependencies via Cocoapods creates a reference to .framework files that will not be present in a Swift Package project, what is the best practice for distributing xcframework binaries to both Cocoapods and Swift Package Manager? It looks as though I'll have to build two different xcframeworks: one built with dependencies provided via pods, and the other via swift packages. Is this correct?