So I just compiled a small Kotlin/native fat frame...

# kotlin-native

[spierce7]

So I just compiled a small Kotlin/native fat framework for our iOS team. It included 2 small private libs, kotlinx.coroutines, ktor, and kotlinx.serialization. The entire compiled framework when added to the iOS app only increased app size by 1.1 MB. That’s fantastic! Way better than I anticipated.

It’s so good I’m actually a bit skeptical that the iOS dev measured things correctly. Does this sound right?

[Kris Wong]

is it static?

[spierce7]

I’m not sure what you mean by static honestly.

[spierce7]

Can frameworks be static or not static? I’m compiling via

[spierce7]

tasks.create("debugFatFramework", org.jetbrains.kotlin.gradle.tasks.FatFrameworkTask::class) {
        baseName = iosFrameworkName

        // The default destination directory is '<build directory>/fat-framework'.
        destinationDir = buildDir.resolve("fat-framework/debug")

        // Specify the frameworks to be merged.
        from(
            iosX64.binaries.getFramework("RELEASE"),
            iosArm64.binaries.getFramework("RELEASE")
        )
    }

[Kris Wong]

yes, they can be static

[Kris Wong]

if you have an isStatic = true in your individual framework config

[spierce7]

I do not

[spierce7]

Would static make it larger, or smaller (smaller I’m assuming?)

[spierce7]

what is the advantage of static vs non-static?

[Kris Wong]

you can read all about static linking, but one advantage is that it only includes symbols are used

[kpgalligan]

I did kotlin size tests recently. To get a real sense of what it’ll do to the app I wound up pushing it to app store connect to get the size estimates. Just some basic string functions with no libraries added ~150k. KaMP Kit, with a bunch of libraries, added ~1.3 meg. This will vary quite a bit depending on what you’re doing, of course. I haven’t really published results because there’s a lot more analysis to do, and I’m working on other things at the moment. Those were all with static frameworks.

[kpgalligan]

The static vs dynamic may not be a huge distinction, as konanc only outputs binary for things you use, so some of that reduction is baked in, but the reality is more complicated than that.

[spierce7]

lol

[spierce7]

im testing to see if static outputs a larger framework now.

[kpgalligan]

I have a forked version of the cocoapods plugin so I can play with that stuff. Debugging with static frameworks wasn’t working. Now I can toggle that easier.

[spierce7]

@kpgalligan give me the short of it. Should I be compiling static frameworks to share with my iOS team or dynamic?

[kpgalligan]

I’m just learning about static/dynamic myself

[kpgalligan]

You probably want static, though

[spierce7]

thx

[spierce7]

ok

[kpgalligan]

The only issue is, as mentioned, debugging out of the box. Can’t.

[kpgalligan]

That’s still being researched, though

[spierce7]

but with dynamic you can debug out of the box?

[kpgalligan]

Yeah. The dsyms are attached. Need to figure out how to reattch them. However! “Out of the box” still means local compile.

[kpgalligan]

You can’t share binary from another machine