Projects with Multiple Targets

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Objective-C is an Object Oriented Programming Language. With that comes the expectation of a plug-n-play programming environment.

It should be possible to add and remove functionality, without breaking the application. This expectation has been historically never fulfilled, due to deficiencies with the compilation tools, the Objective-C runtime and the way headers are handled.

A golden rule of mulle-objc is: do not create projects with multiple targets. Instead create multiple projects and link them together via dependencies.

Setting up a complex project for the modern workflow

If you have a library and an executable, make them two separate projects.

mulle-sde init -m foundation/objc-developer -d mylib library
mulle-sde init -m foundation/objc-developer -d myexe executable

Your project layout would then look like this:

myproject
├── myexe
└── mylib

As you want to use the library with your executable, you add the library as a dependency to the executable:

cd myexe
mulle-sde dependency add --objc --github "${GITHUB_USERNAME:-nobody}" mylib

The GITHUB_USERNAME can be fake, but it is needed to create a URL for the library project, just in case you want to distribute your executable later. It can also be changed later.

Tip: Since mylib is a sibling of myexe it will be easily found. If you place it somewhere else, you need to add it’s parent directory to the search-path variable MULLE_FETCH_SEARCH_PATH. E.g. mylib is /home/wherever/src/mylib then modify the search-path with mulle-sde environment set MULLE_FETCH_SEARCH_PATH '/home/wherever/src:${MULLE_FETCH_SEARCH_PATH}'

With mulle-sde dependency list or the more low-level mulle-sourcetree list -ll you can see the dependency structure of your project.

address             marks                                           aliases  include
-------             -----                                           -------  -------
Foundation          no-singlephase
Foundation-startup  no-dynamic-link,no-header,no-intermediate-link
mylib               no-singlephase

At this point you’re ready to craft again.

mulle-sde craft

And there you are.

Note: You do not have to #import anything or add link statements to your CMakeLists.txt, it’s all done for you with mulle-sde reflect.

Alright lets actually look at the language as it’s implemented by mulle-objc.

Projects with Multiple Targets

Setting up a complex project for the modern workflow

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