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Introduction

External Objects (and User Controls) for iOS, created to be used in GeneXus X Evolution 3, will need to be modified to be used in GeneXus 15.

The reason for this is that the Flexible Client provided by GeneXus changed from one monolithic framework to several smaller frameworks. For that reason, the previous Xcode project linked to the old framework will not work in the new version.

Migration process

Start a new project

For GeneXus 15 we provide an Xcode template that already links to all the necesary frameworks, so it is highly recommended that you start a new Xcode project.

See also: Framework template for iOS User Controls or External Objects.

But don't worry, most of the code you already have will still work with some minor modifications.

Programming language

Even though the generated code changed from Objective-C (in Evolution 3) to Swift (in version 15), you can still use your preferred programming language to develop your user controls or external objects. If you already have Objective-C code, it can be used in GeneXus 15 taking into account some minor modifications.

Imports

In Evolution 3, you had to #import the specific header files. For example:

#import "GXExternalObjectBase.h"

Now you can @import the necessary modules. In Objective-C it would be:

@import GXStandardClasses;

and in Swift:

import GXStandardClasses

Note: there is no easy way to tell in which module each class is. As a general rule, most of the classes you may need are located in the following frameworks: GXStandardClasses, GXCoreUI or GXCoreBL.

Numeric data types

Note: this is only valid when the external object is called from generated code, not when called from a user event.

The Objective-C generator used NSNumber and NSDecimalNumber for the numeric attributes and variables.

Now, the Swift generator uses Int(1), Int64(2) and Decimal(3), so you may need to convert some of your methods.

Method definitions

Note: this is only valid when the external object is called from generated code, not when called from a user event.

The GeneXus X Evolution 3 Objective-C generator required the methods to receive the parameters in an NSArray.

This is no longer the case for the GeneXus 15 Swift generator, now the parameters must be comma-separated and without name label.

For example, suppose your external object has a method RepeatString that takes a Character and a Numeric argument, and it repeats the string the number of times indicated by the second parameter.

The Objective-C definition of this method would be:

- (NSString *)repeatString:(NSArray *)params;

Now, in Swift it should be:

func repeatString(_ str: String, _ num: Int) -> String

Tip: since you already have the Objective-C implementation, and you probably don't want to migrate the implementation to Swift, a quick solution would be to provide an extension in Swift that calls the Objective-C method. In this case, you need to create a new "MyExternalObjectImplementation".swift  file containg something similar to:

public extension MyExternalObjectImplementation {
    public class func repeatString(_ str: String, _ num: Int) -> String {
        let params: Array<Any> = [str, NSNumber(value: num)]
        return MyExternalObjectImplementation().repeatString(params)
    }
}

Actually, since GeneXus 15 you don't need the method receiving the parameters array, so if you already have a method with the desired parameters you can directly call your implementation from the swift extension; for example

public extension MyExternalObjectImplementation {
    public class func repeatString(_ str: String, _ num: Int) -> String {
        return MyExternalObjectImplementation().repeatString(message:str, count: num)
    }
}

For this to work you need to modify the MainName-Bridging-Header.h file from the "GeneXusInstallDir"\iOS\Templates\iOS_Genexus location and add the import of your objects so the project compiles, for example

#import "MyExternalObjectImplementation.h"

Why? Because GeneXus 15 uses Swift and we are calling an Objective-C implementation; for technical details check here.


(1) Int is used for the Numeric data type in GeneXus, without decimals and up to a length of 9.

(2) Int64 is used for the Numeric data type in GeneXus, without decimals and of length larger than 9.

(3) Decimal is used for the Numeric data type in GeneXus, with decimals and of any length.

 

Scope

Objects External object
SD Generators iOS

 

Availability

As from GeneXus 15






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