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Developing a Plugin on iOS

A plugin is an Objective-C class that extends the CDVPlugin class.

Each plugin class must be registered using the config.xml file, as a <plugin> tag under the <plugins> key.

Plugin Class Mapping

The JavaScript portion of a plugin always uses the cordova.exec method as follows:

exec(<successFunction>, <failFunction>, <service>, <action>, [<args>]);

This marshals a request from the UIWebView to the iOS native side, more or less boiling down to calling the action method on the service class, with the arguments passed in the args array.

The plugin must be added under the <plugins> tag of your Cordova-iOS application's project's config.xml file.

<feature name="LocalStorage">
    <param name="ios-package" value="CDVLocalStorage" />
</feature>

The feature name='name' should match what you use in the JavaScript exec call, and the value matches the name of the plugin's Objective-C class. param name should always be "ios-package". Otherwise the plugin may compile but would not be reachable by Cordova.

Plugin Initialization and Lifetime

There is one instance of a plugin object that is created per-UIWebView, and the lifetime of the instance is tied to the UIWebView. Plugins are not instantiated until they are first referenced by a call from JS, unless the onload attribute set within config.xml. E.g.:

<plugin name="Echo" value="Echo" onload="true" />

There is no designated initializer for plugins. Instead, plugins should use the pluginInitialize method for their start-up logic.

Plugins with long-running requests, background activity (e.g. playing media), listeners or internal state should implement the onReset method and stop or clean up those activities. This method is run when the UIWebView navigates to a new page or refreshes, which reloads the JavaScript.

Writing an iOS Cordova Plugin

We have JavaScript fire off a plugin request to the native side. We have the iOS Objective-C plugin mapped properly via the config.xml file. So what does the final iOS Objective-C Plugin class look like?

What gets dispatched to the plugin via JavaScript's exec function gets passed into the corresponding Plugin class's action method. A plugin method has this signature:

- (void)myMethod:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command
{
    CDVPluginResult* pluginResult = nil;
    NSString* myarg = [command.arguments objectAtIndex:0];

    if (myarg != nil) {
        pluginResult = [CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_OK];
    } else {
        pluginResult = [CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_ERROR messageAsString:@"Arg was null"];
    }
    [self.commandDelegate sendPluginResult:pluginResult callbackId:command.callbackId];
}

iOS CDVPluginResult message types

Using CDVPluginResult you can return a variety of result types back to your JavaScript callbacks, using class methods that look like:

+ (CDVPluginResult*)resultWithStatus:(CDVCommandStatus)statusOrdinal messageAs...

You can create String, Int, Double, Bool, Array, Dictionary, ArrayBuffer, and Multipart types. Or, don't attach any arguments (just send a status). Or, return an Error. You can even choose to not send any plugin result at all, in which case the callback does not fire.

Notes

messageAsArrayBuffer expects NSData* and converts to an ArrayBuffer for your JavaScript callback (and ArrayBuffers sent to a plugin from JavaScript are converted to NSData*).
messageAsMultipart expects an NSArray* containing any of the other supported types, and sends the whole array as the arguments to your JavaScript callback.
- Quirk: this is not just syntactic sugar (though it is sweet). This way, all of the arguments are serialized/deserialized as necessary. e.g. it is safe to return NSData* as multipart, but not as Array/Dictionary.

Plugin Signatures

The new signature supported beginning in Cordova 2.1.0 is:

    - (void)myMethod:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;

The old (deprecated) signature is:

    - (void)myMethod:(NSMutableArray*)arguments withDict:(NSMutableDictionary*)options;

Basically, the options dictionary has been removed for the new signature, and the callbackId is not the 0th index item for the arguments array, but it is now in a separate property.

Echo Plugin iOS Plugin

We would add the following to the <plugins> tag of the project's config.xml file:

<plugin name="Echo" value="Echo" />

Then we would add the following files (Echo.h and Echo.m) to the Plugins folder inside our Cordova-iOS application folder:

/********* Echo.h Cordova Plugin Header *******/

#import <Cordova/CDV.h>

@interface Echo : CDVPlugin

- (void)echo:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command;

@end

/********* Echo.m Cordova Plugin Implementation *******/

#import "Echo.h"
#import <Cordova/CDV.h>

@implementation Echo

- (void)echo:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command
{
    CDVPluginResult* pluginResult = nil;
    NSString* echo = [command.arguments objectAtIndex:0];

    if (echo != nil && [echo length] > 0) {
        pluginResult = [CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_OK messageAsString:echo];
    } else {
        pluginResult = [CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_ERROR];
    }

    [self.commandDelegate sendPluginResult:pluginResult callbackId:command.callbackId];
}

@end

Let's take a look at the code. At the top we have all of the necessary Cordova imports. Our class extends from CDVPlugin - very important.

This plugin only supports one action, the echo action. First, we grab the echo string using the objectAtIndex method on our args, telling it we want to get the 0th parameter in the arguments array. We do a bit of parameter checking: make sure it is not nil, and make sure it is not a zero-length string.

If it is, we return a PluginResult with an ERROR status. If all of those checks pass, then we return a PluginResult with an OK status, and pass in the echo string we received in the first place as a parameter.

Finally, we send the result to self.commandDelegate, which executes the exec method's success or failure callbacks on the JavaScript side. If the success callback is called, it passes in the echo parameter.

Threading

Plugin methods are executed in the same thread as the UI. If your plugin requires a great deal of processing or requires a blocking call, you should use a background thread. For example:

- (void)myPluginMethod:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command
{
    // Check command.arguments here.
    [self.commandDelegate runInBackground:^{
        NSString* payload = nil;
        // Some blocking logic...
        CDVPluginResult* pluginResult = [CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_OK messageAsString:payload];
        // The sendPluginResult method is thread-safe.
        [self.commandDelegate sendPluginResult:pluginResult callbackId:command.callbackId];
    }];
}

Advanced Plugin Functionality

See other methods that you can override in:

For example, you can hook into the pause, resume, app terminate and handleOpenURL events.

Debugging Plugins

To debug the Objective-C side, you would use Xcode's built-in debugger. For JavaScript, on iOS 5.0 you can use Weinre, an Apache Cordova Project or iWebInspector, a third-party utility

For iOS 6, you would use Safari 6.0 to simply attach to your app running in the iOS 6 Simulator.

Common Pitfalls

Don't forget to add your plugin's mapping to config.xml. If you forget, an error is logged in the Xcode console.
Don't forget to add any hosts you connect to in the whitelist. If you forget, an error is logged in the Xcode console.

Deprecated Plugin Signature Note

The old (deprecated) signature is:

    - (void) myMethod:(NSMutableArray*)arguments withDict:(NSMutableDictionary*)options;

The Objective-C plugin method's options parameter is deprecated, and should not be used. For legacy reasons, the last JavaScript object passed in the args array is passed in as the options dictionary of the Objective-C method. You must make sure that any JavaScript object that is passed in as an element in the args appears as the last item in the array. Otherwise it throws off the array index for all subsequent parameters of the Objective-C array. Only one JavaScript object is supported for the options dictionary, and only the last one encountered will be passed to the native method. Errors stemming from this problem are the reason options has been deprecated.