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Creating my own bundle in xCode, for iPhone application

Answer 1

+3 A:

First of all, since your question is tagged iPhone, you can only include code in your bundles on the iPhone. So basically you can only use bundles to package up pictures and sound files and other static data.

When you create a new project in XCode, there is an option to make the target a bundle (under Framework & Library), but an assets bundle is just a directory with a .bundle suffix. I generate mine with this little script:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Building assets bundle."
if [ -d ./MyAssets.bundle ]; then
   rm ./MyAssets.bundle/*
else
   mkdir ./MyAssets.bundle
fi
find ./assets -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -J% cp % ./MyAssets.bundle

(I'm no bash hacker, so this can probably be improved in countless ways. Suggestions welcome!)

This takes a folder hierarchy and flattens it (I detest hierarchies) into a single directory which is named MyAssets.bundle. I trigger this script from a separate build phase when in projects that import the bundle, so that changes are automatically tracked.

If you want to learn how to create framework bundles, it's a bit more complicated (you have to follow certain conventions and include info in plists), but for iPhone bundles, this is pretty much all you will need to know and do.

Felixyz 2010-04-05 18:50:27

Is it possible to load xib files from this bundle, because I haven't found a way to do that?

vakio 2010-09-21 12:48:52

You can use the appropriate bundle in both [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"MyViewController" owner:self options:nil] and [aViewController initWithNibName:@"MyViewController" bundle:nil] (nil just means the main bundle)

Felixyz 2010-09-23 06:08:55

But you can't have an external bundle, right? Like NSBundle *bundle = someFunctionToLoadExternalBundle(); [bundle loadNibNamed:@"name" owner:self options:nil]; I have googled and only found that it can't be done. Just checking if you discovered a miracle way to do it or something, but I know it's probably never going to happen.

vakio 2010-09-23 16:29:10

What do you mean by external bundle? You of course need to include the bundle in your app bundle. Then you can use it like this for example: UIImage* myImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"MyBundle.bundle/images/myImage.png"];

Felixyz 2010-09-23 18:34:23

And in general, rather than just googling, I'd recommend taking the time to read Apple's extensive documentation on topics like this: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/corefoundation/Conceptual/CFBundles/

Felixyz 2010-09-23 18:42:50

I'm talking about loading xib files from a bundle other than the main bundle, via loadNibNamed:owner:options or initWithNibName:bundle:, which is from my understanding an impossibility on the iPhone.

vakio 2010-09-27 08:09:44

I haven't done it myself, but I very much doubt that there would be a method called initWithNibName:bundle: if you could only load nibs from the main bundle. But it would be better if you posted a new question instead of continuing on this commentary thread.

Felixyz 2010-09-27 17:17:40

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Creating my own bundle in xCode, for iPhone application

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