IOS creates a universal library - for i386 and arm7

Question

We are creating a library for use in iOS development. We can create either the i386 library for the simulator or the arm7 library for the hardware device. As now, we must have two different files (.a libraries) when distributing the library to our other developers. This is a little cumbersome for distribution purposes. I was wondering; is there any way to build a library in Xcode so that there are both i386 and arm7 in one .a library file so that we can distribute only one library file for both i386 and arm7 architectures.

Answer 1

You can use the lipo tool to stitch these two files into one “universal” file:

lipo -create <i386_lib>.a <armv7_lib>.a -output lib.a