Using homebrew installed SDL2 with Xcode

Question

I have installed SDL2 using Homebrew but now I don't know how to make sure Xcode can use it! I imported the created library and added it to the build phases tab of my project. But when I try to build I get the error 'SDL2/SDL.h' not found

Answer 1

To be able to use SDL2 on Xcode you must set two things (which are required for SDL in general):

• where to find header files (so that Clang can compile with -Iheader/path)
• where to find the .dylib to link it to the project (since with brew you don't have a real .framework)

To know the correct paths you should invoke sdl2-config --cflags and sdl2-config --libs. On my system these produce:

:~jack$ /usr/local/bin/sdl2-config --cflags
-I/usr/local/include/SDL2 -I/usr/X11R6/include -D_THREAD_SAFE

:~jack$ /usr/local/bin/sdl2-config --libs
-L/usr/local/lib -lSDL2

Now just paste the first one into other C flags and the other one into other linker flags field of your project and you are ready to go.

You could set them up in the correct fields, which is Header Search Paths for -I and Library Search Path for -l but the result will be the same.