Building VLC for iOS
How I built VLC for iOS today. If you like, you can read my rant about the politics of Mobile VLC.
YMMV – this is a very active project it seems. The steps are probably the same, but your error resolution may be different. If you don’t care about getting the latest and greatest, I *could* zip up my build directory and throw it online, in case that would help.
1. git clone git://git.videolan.org/MobileVLC.git
2. ./buildMobileVLC.sh
In doing this, I got the error (YMMV, this may be fixed):
[info] Building MobileVLCKit (MobileVLCKit) ** BUILD FAILED ** The following build commands failed: MobileVLCKit: Libtool /Users/will/iphone/OSS/MobileVLC/ImportedSources/vlc/projects/macosx/framework/build/Release-iphoneos/libMobileVLCKit.a normal armv7 (1 failure)
Running in verbose mode reveals the actual line -Â it can’t find the xtag.a library.
Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/usr/bin/libtool: can't open file: MobileVLC/ImportedSources/vlc/projects/macosx/framework/../../../install-ios-Simulator/lib/vlc/plugins/misc/libxtag_plugin.a
[edited for brevity]
Don’t bother trying to open the library xcode projects – if that shell script doesn’t finish, it won’t work.
This failure was due to it trying to link in the “xtag” library, which apparently is no longer needed.
To fix, edit the file:
MobileVLC/ImportedSources/vlc/projects/macosx/framework/AggregateStaticPlugins.h
and remove the line:
plugins+="misc/xtag "
3. Finally, from the MobileVLC project, build the project and run
This blog details a previous successful attempt at getting this compiled, I didn’t actually use these steps since it seems the source is now different from then – but there it is anyway.
Good luck with VLC – if you’re an iOS developer, why not provision a few friends and give them a private copy of VLC.
After all, VLC really *makes* iOS devices…
Hey,
I’m having a heck of a time getting this to build on my box. Any chance I could take you up on your offer to ‘zip up my build directory and throw it online?’ :)
Oops – never mind! No sooner did I ask than I got it to build just fine.
Hey Dave,
Glad you got it working!
Will
Hi,
This looks very interesting. Could you zip up your build directory and share it online for download? If not, may I know where else I can find the latest copy of the project for download?
Thank you!
Kohsli
Hi Kohsli,
If git is installed on your system, you just run:
git clone git://git.videolan.org/MobileVLC.git
As per step #1 above. Then run step #2 which will download the rest of the code.
It’s better to do it this way, as then you have a way to stay up to date with any new features they add.
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks alot for your response.
However, I’m facing some problems after Step 2.
[info] Building
./buildMobileVLC.sh: line 23: pushd: vlc/extras/package/ios: No such file or directory
Does anyone know what am I missing?
I was hoping to get this project compiled to see what this application is basically about. Could you help by sharing your compiled copy? I don’t mind if its not the most up to date.
Thanks very much.
Kohsli
Hi,
I’ve got the project compiled. The reason is that the download wasn’t complete. I repeated Step 1 and 2 to get that done.
Cheers,
Kohsli
Hello,
Man, i killed so much time trying, to compile MobileVLC, without any result, so i don’t know what to do..
Please.. Could you give me your compiled copy..You’re my last chance!
Many thanks
Hi Will,
I am not able to build it too. My env is 10.6 Snow Leopard and xcode 3.2.6. What’s your building env?
Thanks.
Hi,
my building env is 10.7.2 and xcode 4.2 with iOS sdk5.0.
I modified some target and sdk related variables in some sh(s). although i find every these variables, there are errors occurred while i run build.sh. detail info can be viewed as below
emote: Counting objects: 185250, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (44916/44916), done.
remote: Total 185250 (delta 145005), reused 179068 (delta 140064)
Receiving objects: 100% (185250/185250), 48.13 MiB | 177 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (145005/145005), done.
make[1]: *** [.ffmpeg] Error 1
make: *** [using-src] Error 2
by hint messages, i found extra/contrib/contrib.mak, and looked up it carefully. i can’t find any problem in it… could you do me a favor and tell me how should i finish it..
thanks
[...] anyway – being GPL software, you can still download and compile MobileVLC yourself.  I have – and it works great. If you are a friend of mine, I can possibly provision you a copy.  To compile it yourself, you [...]