Potentially misleading iOS manual install instructions

TLDR

Steps 2. and 3. of the iOS manual install instructions should probably be replaced with:

• Add the following to your Podfile pod 'RNShare', :path => '../node_modules/react-native-share'

Detailed explanation

After detaching Expo, I wanted to install react-native-share on it. Since I’d rather make the changes to the files myself, I chose the manual install instructions and followed it to heart, and proceeded to build my project in XCode. That’s when I met the error that would keep me company for the next 2 hours: 'React/RCTAnimationType.h' file not found. No amount of Google searching and project cleaning did anything, but somehow, I eventually decided on running react-native link react-native-share, expecting it do to close to nothing. Instead it added the following line to my Podfile: pod 'RNShare', :path => '../node_modules/react-native-share'. After this I had to do a bit more experimentation but in the end I got my build working by:

• doing some more cleaning (removing node_modules, Pods folder, lock files, etc.),
• removing the libRNShare.a from Link Binary With Libraries on XCode
• reverting steps 2 and 3 of the instructions
• installing everything again (npm i, pod install)
• adding libRNShare.a once again (this time the version from the recently aquired RNShare Pod)

This leads me to believe that had the instruction been how I described in the TLDR, the build would have worked the first time. Unfortunately I don’t have the time or strength to test this theory right now, but I thought I’d leave this information here in case someone stumbles on this problem too, and hoping someone will have the time to test this theory and update the instructions.

Environment

• React Native version: Expo’s version for SDK 32.0.0

react-native-share

Version: 1.1.3

[pavelgajdos]

I can confirm that the solution outlined above has worked for me.

These are the exact steps I did to have a successful build:

(0.) expo eject // I didn't need to eject before
1. removing node_modules
2. npm install
3. cd ios && pod install && cd ..

4. npm install react-native-share --save
5. react-native link react-native-share
6. cd ios && pod install # this is important, pod install should be called again after react-native link
7. Adding libRNShare.a to Build phases in Xcode
(8.) I also added MessageUI.framework and Social.framework as suggested in the readme.

That’s it.

[fvieira]

About updating the README, before I do it I would have to find the time to test that the new instructions would indeed work. I’m confident they would, but they might not and I don’t want to confuse people even more, I would rather just leave this issue as a helper they can find in Google in case they get stuck as I did. But I might have some time to test this next week, we’ll see.