Adding Firebase to your C++ Project

About the Firebase C++ SDK

The Firebase C++ SDK provides a C++ interface on top of Firebase for iOS and Android.

It allows you to access Firebase entirely from your C++ code, without requiring you to write any Java code (on Android) or Objective-C/Swift code (on iOS), and translates many language-specific idioms used by Firebase into an interface more familiar to C++ developers.

Setup for iOS

Prerequisites

• Xcode 7.0 or later.
• For Cloud Messaging:
  • A physical iOS device
  • APNs certificate with Push Notifications enabled

Set up your app in Firebase console

It's time to add Firebase to your app. To do this you'll need a Firebase project and a Firebase configuration file for your app.

1. Create a Firebase project in the Firebase console, if you don't already have one. If you already have an existing Google project associated with your mobile app, click Import Google Project. Otherwise, click Create New Project.
2. Click Add Firebase to your iOS app and follow the setup steps. If you're importing an existing Google project, this may happen automatically and you can just download the config file.
3. When prompted, enter your app's bundle ID. It's important to enter the bundle ID your app is using; this can only be set when you add an app to your Firebase project.
4. At the end, you'll download a GoogleService-Info.plist file. You can download this file again at any time.
5. If you haven't done so already, copy this into your Xcode project root.

Add the Firebase C++ SDK to your app

1. Download the Firebase C++ SDK. Extract the files somewhere convenient.

2. Add the frameworks downloaded in the SDK to your Xcode project. Note that you only need to include the base Firebase framework, along with the frameworks that correspond to the services you want to use (refer to the dependencies section below). The easiest way to do this is usually just to drag them from a Finder window directly onto the project navigator pane in Xcode (left-most pane, by default - click the file icon at the top left). Make sure you add them to your project, and not to the Pods project!

3. Build your app. The Firebase code should compile and link correctly now. You're done!

Dependencies

Various Firebase features have different dependencies. Be sure to include all of the needed dependencies to your project and Podfile:

firebase.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'

firebase.framework
firebase_analytics.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'

firebase.framework
firebase_admob.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'
pod 'Firebase/AdMob'

firebase.framework
firebase_messaging.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'
pod 'Firebase/Messaging'

firebase.framework
firebase_auth.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'
pod 'Firebase/Auth'

firebase.framework
firebase_invites.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'
pod 'Firebase/Invites'

firebase.framework
firebase_remote_config.framework
pod 'Firebase/Core'
pod 'Firebase/RemoteConfig'

Method swizzling

On iOS, some application events (such as opening URLs and receiving notifications) require your application delegate to implement specific methods. For example, receiving a notification may require your application delegate to implement application:didReceiveRemoteNotification:. Because each iOS application has its own app delegate, Firebase uses method swizzling, which allows the replacement of one method with another, to attach its own handlers in addition to any you may have implemented.

The Firebase Invites and Cloud Messaging libraries need to attach handlers to the application delegate using method swizzling. If you are using these libraries, at load time, Firebase will identify your AppDelegate class and swizzle the required methods onto it, chaining a call back to your existing method implementation.

Setup for Android

Prerequisites

• Android NDK version 10d or later.
• The gcc compiler.

Set up your app in Firebase console

To add Firebase to your app you'll need a Firebase project and a Firebase configuration file for your app.

1. Create a Firebase project in the Firebase console, if you don't already have one. If you already have an existing Google project associated with your mobile app, click Import Google Project. Otherwise, click Create New Project.
2. Click Add Firebase to your Android app and follow the setup steps. If you're importing an existing Google project, this may happen automatically and you can just download the config file.
3. When prompted, enter your app's package name. It's important to enter the package name your app is using; this can only be set when you add an app to your Firebase project.
4. At the end, you'll download a google-services.json file. You can download this file again at any time.
5. If you haven't done so already, copy this into your project's module folder, typically app/.

Add the Firebase C++ SDK to your app

1. Download the Firebase C++ SDK. Extract the files somewhere convenient.

2. Add the location of the Firebase C++ SDK to your gradle.properties file:

   systemProp.firebase_cpp_sdk.dir=~/your_local_firebase_sdk_dir
   

3. Add the location of the Android NDK to your local.properties file:

   ndk.dir=~/your_local_ndk_dir
   

4. Add any dependencies to your app/build.gradle file. (See the dependencies section for details.)

5. You should now be able to build your project with Firebase support by running build.gradle from Android Studio. You're done!

Dependencies

Various Firebase features have different dependencies. Include all of the needed dependencies to the dependencies section of your app/build.gradle file:

libanalytics.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-analytics:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:9.6.1'

libadmob.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:9.6.1'

libmessaging.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:9.6.1'

libauth.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:9.6.1'

libinvites.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-invites:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:9.6.1'

libremote_config.a
libapp.a
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-config:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-base:9.6.1'

Additional Information

Custom Build Systems

We currently provide generate_xml_from_google_services_json.py to convert google-services.json to .xml resources to be included in an application. This script applies the same transformation that the Google Play Services Gradle plug-in performs when building Android applications. Users who don't use Gradle (e.g ndk-build, makefiles, Visual Studio etc.) can use this script to automate the generation of string resources.

ProGuard

Many Android build systems use ProGuard for builds in Release mode to shrink application sizes and protect Java source code. If you use ProGuard, you will need to add the files in libs/android/*.pro corresponding to the Firebase C++ libraries you are using to your ProGuard configuration.

For example, with Gradle, build.gradle would contain:

android {
  [...other stuff...]
  buildTypes {
    release {
      minifyEnabled true
      proguardFile getDefaultProguardFile('your-project-proguard-config.txt')
      proguardFile file(project.ext.firebase_cpp_sdk_dir + "/libs/android/app.pro")
      proguardFile file(project.ext.firebase_cpp_sdk_dir + "/libs/android/analytics.pro")
      [...and so on, for each Firebase C++ library you are using.]
    }
  }
}

Requiring Google Play services

Many Firebase C++ libraries require Google Play services on the user's Android device. If a Firebase C++ library returns kInitResultFailedMissingDependency on initialization, it means Google Play services is not available on the device (it needs to be updated, reactivated, permissions fixed, etc.) and that Firebase library cannot be used until the situation is corrected.

You can find out why Google Play services is unavailable (and try to fix it) by using the functions in google_play_services/availability.h.

A note on AdMob and Google Play services

Most versions of the Google Mobile Ads SDK for Android can work properly without Google Play services. However, if you are using the com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite dependency instead of the standard com.google.firebase:firebase-ads dependency listed above, Google Play services will be required in your specific case.

AdMob initialization will only return kInitResultFailedMissingDependency when Google Play services is unavailable and you are using com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite.