CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Cocoa projects, used to manage external libraries for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS written in Swift and Objective-C. It uses a central repository of pod specifications (podspecs) that describe a library and its integration requirements, including version constraints and platform compatibility. Developers declare their dependencies in a Podfile, a DSL, and run the pod command to resolve and install them.

During installation, CocoaPods constructs an Xcode workspace that includes the original project and a Pods project containing the downloaded libraries. The resulting workspace lets Xcode build the dependencies alongside the project. Commands such as 'pod install', 'pod update', and 'pod deintegrate' manage installation, updates, and removal. CocoaPods handles transitive dependencies and provides options for static or dynamic linkage and subspecs within a pod.

CocoaPods is implemented as a Ruby gem and is installed via RubyGems. It is maintained by a community of contributors and a core team and remains a widely used tool in iOS and macOS development, often preferred for its mature ecosystem of pods and straightforward integration with Xcode. Alternative dependency managers for Apple platforms include Carthage and the Swift Package Manager.