[swift-users] SwiftPM manual dependency management

[Ankit Aggarwal]

On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Geordie J via swift-users <
swift-users at swift.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My team and I are trying to use SwiftPM to develop a relatively complex
> app with multiple dependencies, all of which are being developed locally
> and in parallel. The reason for this is compatibility with an existing
> module/import structure used by our iOS app. Maybe I’m doing something very
> wrong but my experience so far (2 months in) is that this is extremely
> difficult with SwiftPM.
>
> What I’d love to be able to do is to just run `git add submodule
> http://blah.com/mysubmodule.git` in the Packages subdirectory and SwiftPM
> would just let me manage dependencies from there myself.
>
> I was excited to see that SwiftPM 4 has a "Top of Tree" development option
> for this purpose. So far my experience with this has not been good. Firstly
> because SwiftPM *still* unnecessarily tries to clone my repos itself
> (some of which are huge), and secondly because this creates an absolute
> path dependency in `.build/dependencies-state.json`, meaning this setup
> isn’t sharable within our dev team.
>
> Attempting this with "local" git urls adds an almost absurd level of
> complexity, having to tag each commit for SwiftPM to build. The fact that
> we'd need to make a commit to test whether the project even builds is
> insane enough as is, let alone the tagging and trying to tell the base
> project to use a newer minor version etc etc.
>
> Adding multiple subtargets is also not an option because the dependencies
> (as dynamic libraries) really are shared between multiple
> targets/sub-dependencies, which SwiftPM seems to deal with quite well.
>
> *tldr;* *Please* let us manage dependencies ourselves. It’d be so easy if
> Package.swift had an option along the lines of *.Package.local(named:
> "XYZ")* that it then looked for in ./Packages/XYZ. Again, maybe I’m
> overlooking something but this seems like an obvious and vital option to
> have. It’d also simplify the introductory SwiftPM docs significantly.
>
> Is anyone else having this issue? Would this change really be as simple
> and painless as it sounds? I would be prepared to make a pull request along
> these lines.
>

I think you're not really using the Top of Tree feature. You need to add
each dependency using its canonical URL, hosted at some server like github.
After adding the dependencies, you can use edit feature to put a dependency
in Top of Tree mode. To do so, run:

$ swift package edit <PackageName> --path
../path/to/self/managed/checkout/of/the/package

The package manager will then stop using the cloned repository and use the
checkout present at that path (regardless of the state it is in). Sharing
this setup is not automatic, but simple. Each user just needs to run the
above command once per dependency. Also, you only need to do this if you're
actively working on a dependency. The new manifest also supports using
branch instead of version range, which is very helpful during the
development period. Let me know if something is unclear or if you have more
questions!


> Best Regards,
> Geordie
>
>
> PS. In SwiftPM 3 we had been using a hack that worked great: by filling in
> the dependencies' "basedOn" key in `workspace-state.json`, SwiftPM just
> left us alone.. We were able to commit `workspace-state.json` into our base
> project’s git repo and the rest Just Worked™. Now with the absolute paths
> being checked for this doesn’t seem to be an option.
>
>
Please do not rely on internals of the package manager as they're not
stable and will change without notice.



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