Cocoapods: source_files does not find files specified with .. in relative path

[MaxGabriel]

Summary

The source_files attribute does not match relative paths using .., e.g. ../Classes/ExampleLib.{m,h}

Report

• What did you do?

Ran pod install on a Podspec that located its source_files using a relative path, "../Classes/ExampleLib.{m,h}".

• What did you expect to happen?

pod install installed the source files into the Xcode project

• What happened instead?

pod install didn't install the source files, though it did create Pods targets, dummy files, xcconfig files, etc.

Details

Initially @dstumm had this issue when using the path ../GraphicServices.framework for the vendored_frameworks attribute, and I replicated the issue in the Cocoapods Example Library for the regular source_files attribute. The example project replicating the issue is here. (You'll need to pod install from within the Example/ directory to replicate).

Stack

Cocoapods: I replicated this issue on 0.22.3 and 0.23.0.rc1
Ruby: ruby 1.9.3p327 (2012-11-10 revision 37606) [x86_64-darwin12.3.0]
RubyGems: 1.8.25
OS: OS X 10.8.4 Build 12E55
Xcode: 4.6.3 (4H1503)

Podfile

Pod::Spec.new do |s|
  s.name         =  'ExampleLib'
  s.version      =  '1.0'
  s.license      =  { :type => 'MIT', :file => '../LICENSE' }
  s.homepage     =  'http://github.com/orta/ExampleLib'
  s.authors      =  { 'orta' => '[email protected]' }
  s.source       =  { :git => 'https://github.com/orta/ExampleLib.git', :tag => s.version.to_s }

  s.summary      =  'Just a simple podspec, no working code.'
  s.description  =  'Just a simple podspec for 2 files.'

  s.source_files = "../Classes/ExampleLib.{m,h}"
end

Contents of pod lib lint

 -> ExampleLib (1.0)
    - WARN  | The description is shorter than the summary.
    - ERROR | The `source_files` pattern did not match any file.

[!] ExampleLib did not pass validation.

[alloy]

While I agree that in theory relative paths should work, it’s never a good idea to move a podspec out of the repo root, because then people won’t be able to use CocoaPods to install it directly from your repo (which is where it expects it). Henceforth, I’m not so sure we have to fix this. @irrationalfab do you have any thoughts?

PS: Can you point me to @dstumm’s ticket regarding vendored_frameworks?

[fabiopelosin]

As @alloy says the podspec should be in the root of the repo. This is done to simplify the usage of the pod directly from the repo (otherwise it would be necessary to specify the path of the podspec) and for technical reasons as CocoaPods caches the list of the paths of the Pod.

The behavior discussed in the ticket would not allow to assume the root of the pod and thus to support it it would be necessary to introduce an alternative and dedicated logic (which doesn't relies in caching) in CocoaPods. In my opinion the benefit over cost of development is very low (but it might be the case that I'm missing an important usage scenario).

I'm very sorry to close an issue which such a great description/example. However I think that this feature should not be considered for CocoaPods 1.0. Later it can be discussed if there is enough demand for it.

[MaxGabriel]

Yeah that's fine -- using the parent directory isn't important to us, it's just how @dstumm was organizing his repo. I submitted a PR for the file_patterns section of the docs to note that the parent directory isn't supported, and a recommendation to put the Podspec at the root of the repo:

@alloy, @dstumm didn't submit a separate ticket as it all looked to be the same hting

[Usipov]

You can save much time to many developers if you add some kind of a warning about this unintuitive behaviour

the parent directory isn't supported

[sirghi]

Here is a use-case I hope you'll find valid:
We're developing a framework to be distributed as a binary. We have the main (private) repo containing a framework project with the source code, and a folder inside it is organized as a submodule which points to a public repo, which contains the built framework, a demo app, and the podspec so that consumers would point to the public repo to use it.

To ease development/testing, I want to just change the line in the podspec saying s.vendored_frameworks = ... to s.source_files = '../Source/*.swift' to reference the sources from the parent directory (and repository).

So please, please fix this.

[sweetwilma]

Ran into this same issue today. Would really like to have this working, without excuses of how it "should" be done.

[apecoraro]

Another use case - we have two different podspec files, one for iOS, one for macOS, and thus two different pod repo root directories, but the code for them is the same. Would rather not have to duplicate the code.

[llOldmenll]

Was any workaround found so far?