How to build for iOS

How to build and setup on iOS

First, follow all the instructions on Setup and Build on OSX. While some steps could be skipped if you only want to build for iOS, it is useful to diagnose problems during the initial iOS project setup by replicating it on OSX.

The C++ REST SDK depends on Boost and OpenSSL when used on iOS. It is a non-trivial task to cross-compile libraries for iOS, however there are scripts available online with nonrestrictive licenses to compile many popular libraries -- among these libraries are Boost and OpenSSL.

This document will walk through the steps to build the C++ REST SDK and its dependencies into a form suitable for use with iOS applications.

For this walkthrough, we assume you are working within the Build_iOS directory of the project.

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/cpprestsdk.git casablanca
pushd casablanca/Build_iOS
./configure.sh

This will produce a universal static library called "libcpprest.a" for the x86_64 simulator, and arm64.

Using the C++ REST SDK

You will need to link against the following from your project:

• build.debug/libcpprest.a
• boost.framework
• openssl/lib/libcrypto.a
• openssl/lib/libssl.a
• libiconv.dylib (Available within the default list of libraries to link)
• Security.framework (Available within the default list of libraries to link)

You will also need to add the following paths as additional include directories:

• ../Debug/include
• boost.framework/Headers
• openssl/include

This should allow you to reference and use the C++ REST SDK from your C++ and Objective-C++ source files. Note: you should change all .m files in your project to .mm files, because even if the source file itself does not use the C++ REST SDK, it is possible that some C++ code will be pulled in via header includes. To avoid errors later, it is easiest to simply rename all your project sources to use '.mm'.