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I have a app which historically has grown a lot and to be a bit cleaner and to have the option to give out code to third party developers in the future, I was thinking about splitting my project into multiple projects which I then could export as a framework.

Currently everything is in one big project. I have:

  • 4 App targets
  • Shared view controllers
  • Shared web services
  • Shared model classes
  • Shared utility classes
  • Shared extensions
  • Shared protocols

The thing is that not every web service is used in every app. Not every protocoll is used in every app. Not every extension is used in every app and so on.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but can't I put, for example, the web services in their own framework and then use the framework in the project where I have my app targets?

Can I do the same for a "core" which contains all utilities, extension, protocolls and models?

Can I then use the "core" in the webs service framework as well as in the app targets?

What would such a structure look like? I already tried creating two framework projects and then use one framework inside the other but I cant build it. Is it because I would need to use Cocoapods inside each of the framework projects? Is that possible?

The web services for example would need "RxSwift" and "Moya" but the "Core" would also need "RxSwift".

Do I have a wrong thinking here? Shall I only use one Core framework and put everything in there which is shared? I'm confused and probably lack the deeper understanding of how the frameworks work.

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I'm using CocoaPods and have separate from main app web service and core frameworks. This way it looks in the project:

enter image description here

Lets start with core because even web service depends on it. I call it Common instead of core and it is available on GitHub. It contains multiple subfolders which represent frameworks they extend. And there are two podspecs.

enter image description here

CommonExtended contains functions that are not available in app extensions (for example in Today Extension) and depends on Common. So, splitting core into two separate frameworks provide a way to use it in both main app and app extensions. Although Common is available on GitHub, I download and use it locally (but it can be downloaded from remote whenever you update your pods, you just need to specify remote address)

web service is a local folder which is called Api and its podspec looks this way:

enter image description here

As you can see, it has such dependencies as RxSwift, Moya and Common (the desired behavior from your question - framework contains framework).

So, whenever I need to use any of the frameworks in an app or its extensions - I just specify what kind of framework is required as dependency:

enter image description here

Then just import your frameworks and use them:

import Api
import Common
import CommonExtended

P.S. This is just an experiment, I'm not a CocoaPods professional. But it works for me.

Edit. Local pods are easy to update. You just make changes and see them in your project (as I remember Cmd+B on main project makes the changes to be visible). But this only works with files in local pod which already exist. If you need to add new file to a local pod - run pod install to make this file visible.

All the local pods are 100% local and they live in the same repository as main project. But Common is a remote repository which is downloaded locally. Why? Because it is used in different projects. So, on each machine you have to write its own path to Common in podfile. This link provides a way to define a path to Common on each machine and never change podfile again. Don't forget to commit Common changes to the remote. Other local pods will be committed with the project automatically.

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Really good answer, I will give this a try. Can you tell me a bit about your update process if you change somthing in the common framework? Will it just "be there" because you have it locally or do you have to run pod upgrade first for every change?
@xxtesaxx I have added an edit at the and of my answer
@xxtesaxx btw, if you will find some better solution - please post it here.

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