xamarin-macios/docs/native-library-interop.md

NativeLibraryInterop

Overview

Native Library Interop (formerly referred to as the "Slim Binding" approach), refers to a pattern for accessing native SDKs in .NET for iOS, Mac Catalyst, macOS, and tvOS projects.

Starting in .NET 9, the .NET for iOS, Mac Catalyst, macOS, and tvOS SDKs support building Xcode framework projects by using the @(XcodeProjet) build action. This is declared in an MSBuild ItemGroup in a project file:

<ItemGroup>
  <XcodeProject Include="path/to/MyProject.xcodeproj" SchemeName="MyLibrary" />
</ItemGroup>

When an @(XcodeProject) item is added to a .NET for iOS, Mac Catalyst, macOS, or tvOS binding project, the build process will attempt to create an XCFramework from the specified Xcode project. The XCFramework output will be added as a @(NativeReference) to the .NET project so that it can be bound and have its API surfaced via an API definition file.

Please see the build-items docs for more information about the @(XcodeProjet) build action.

Additional documentation and references can be found below:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/communitytoolkit/maui/native-library-interop
• https://github.com/CommunityToolkit/Maui.NativeLibraryInterop