Add Firebase to your C++ projectplat_iosplat_androidplat_cpp

Power up your C++ games with our Firebase C++ SDKs which provide a C++ interface on top of Firebase for iOS and for Android.

Access Firebase entirely from your C++ code, without having to write any platform-native code. The Firebase SDK also translates many language-specific idioms used by Firebase into an interface more familiar to C++ developers.

Find out more information about powering up your games with Firebase at our Firebase games page.

Step 1: Set up your environment

• Install Xcode 9.4.1 or later.

• Install CocoaPods 1.4.0 or later.

• Open your C++ project in Xcode.

  • Your app must target iOS 8 or later.

• Set up a device or emulator for running your app.

  • For Cloud Messaging, you'll need:
    • A physical iOS device
    • APNs certificate with Push Notifications enabled

• Sign into Firebase using your Google account.

Step 2: Create a Firebase project

Before you can add Firebase to your C++ project, you need to create a Firebase project to connect to your C++ project. Visit Understand Firebase Projects to learn more about Firebase projects.

Step 3: Register your app with Firebase

You can register one or more apps to connect with your Firebase project.

Visit Understand Firebase Projects to learn more about best practices and considerations for adding apps to a Firebase project, including how to handle multiple build variants.

1. In the center of the Firebase console's project overview page, click the iOS icon to launch the setup workflow.

   If you've already added an app to your Firebase project, click Add app to display the platform options.

2. Enter your app’s bundle ID in the iOS bundle ID field.

   • Find this bundle ID from your open project in XCode. Select the top-level app in the project navigator at the left, then access the General tab. The Bundle Identifier value is the iOS bundle ID (for example, com.yourcompany.ios-app-name).

3. (Optional) Enter other app information as prompted by the setup workflow.

   The nickname is an internal, convenience identifier and is only visible to you in the Firebase console.

4. Click Register app.

Step 4: Add the Firebase configuration file

1. Click Download GoogleService-Info.plist to obtain your Firebase iOS config file.

   • You can download your Firebase iOS config file again at any time.

   • Make sure the config file is not appended with additional characters, like (2).

2. Open your C++ project in an IDE, then drag your config file into the root of your C++ project.

3. If prompted, select to add the config file to all targets.

4. You're done with set up tasks in the Firebase console. Continue to Add Firebase C++ SDKs below.

Step 5: Add Firebase C++ SDKs

The steps in this section serve as an example of how to add any supported Firebase product to your Firebase C++ project. In this example, we walk through adding Google Analytics for Firebase.

Adding Google Analytics for Firebase to your C++ project is optional, but it's a relatively easy way to verify that Firebase is working properly with your app. In addition, Analytics can be very useful during development and debugging, as well as helping to track the success of your production apps.

1. Download the Firebase C++ SDK, then unzip the SDK somewhere convenient.

   The Firebase C++ SDK is not platform-specific, but it does contain platform-specific libraries.

2. Add Firebase pods from the unzipped SDK.

   1. Create a Podfile if you don't already have one:

      cd your-app-directory

      pod init

   2. To your Podfile, add the pods for each Firebase product that you want to use. For Analytics, run:

      pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '5.12.0'

   3. Install the pods, then open the .xcworkspace file in Xcode.

      pod install

      open your-app.xcworkspace

3. Add Firebase frameworks from the unzipped SDK.

   The easiest way to add these frameworks is usually to drag them from a Finder window directly into Xcode's Project Navigator pane (the far-left pane, by default; or click the file icon in the top-left of Xcode).

   1. Add the core Firebase framework (firebase.framework), which is required to use any Firebase product.

   2. Add the framework for each Firebase product that you want to use. For Analytics, add firebase_analytics.framework.

4. Back in the Firebase console, in the setup workflow, click Next.

5. Run your app to send verification to Firebase that you've successfully integrated Firebase.

   Your device logs will display the Firebase verification that initialization is complete. If you ran your app on an emulator that has network access, the Firebase console notifies you that your app connection is complete.

   You’re all set! Your C++ app is registered and configured to use Firebase products.

Available libraries

Learn more about the C++ Firebase libraries in the reference documentation and in our open-source SDK release on GitHub.

Available libraries for iOS

Note that C++ libraries for Android are listed on the Android version of this setup page.

Each Firebase product has different dependencies. Be sure to add all the listed dependencies for the desired Firebase product to your Podfile and C++ project.

firebase.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_admob.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/AdMob', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_analytics.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_auth.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Auth', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_functions.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Functions', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_messaging.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Messaging', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_storage.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Storage', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_dynamic_links.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/DynamicLinks', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_database.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Database', '6.3.0'

firebase.framework
  firebase_remote_config.framework
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics', '6.3.0'
  pod 'Firebase/RemoteConfig', '6.3.0'
  

Additional information for mobile setup

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 might 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 that you might have implemented.

The Firebase Invites, Dynamic Links, and Cloud Messaging libraries need to attach handlers to the application delegate using method swizzling. If you're using any of these Firebase products, 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.

Set up a desktop workflow (beta)

When you're creating a game, it's often much easier to test your game on desktop platforms first, then deploy and test on mobile devices later in development. To support this workflow, we provide a subset of the Firebase C++ SDKs which can run on Windows, OS X, Linux, and from within the C++ editor.

1. For desktop workflows, you need to complete the following:

   • Configure your C++ project for CMake.
   • Create a Firebase project
   • Register your app (iOS or Android) with Firebase
   • Add a mobile-platform Firebase configuration file

2. Create a desktop version of the Firebase configuration file:

   • If you added the Android google-services.json file — When you run your app, Firebase locates this mobile file, then automatically generates a desktop Firebase config file (google-services-desktop.json).

   • If you added the iOS GoogleService-Info.plist file — Before you run your app, you need to convert this mobile file to a desktop Firebase config file. To convert the file, run the following command from the same directory as your GoogleService-Info.plist file:

     generate_xml_from_google_services_json.py --plist -i GoogleService-Info.plist

   This desktop config file contains the C++ project ID that you entered in the Firebase console setup workflow. Visit Understand Firebase Projects to learn more about config files.

3. Add Firebase SDKs to your C++ project.

   The steps below serve as an example of how to add any supported Firebase product to your C++ project. In this example, we walk through adding Google Analytics for Firebase.

   1. Set your FIREBASE_CPP_SDK_DIR environment variable to the location of the unzipped Firebase C++ SDK.

   2. To your project's CMakeLists.txt file, add the following content, including the libraries for the Firebase products that you want to use. For example, for Analytics:

      # Add Firebase libraries to the target using the function from the SDK.
      add_subdirectory(${FIREBASE_CPP_SDK_DIR} bin/ EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
      
      # The core Firebase library (firebase_app) is required to use any Firebase product,
      # and it must always be listed last.
      set(firebase_libs firebase_analytics firebase_app)
      target_link_libraries(${target_name} "${firebase_libs}")
      

4. Run your C++ app.

Available libraries (desktop)

The Firebase C++ SDK includes desktop workflow support for a subset of features, enabling certain parts of Firebase to be used in standalone desktop builds on Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Firebase provides the remaining desktop libraries as stub (non-functional) implementations for convenience when building for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Therefore, you don't need to conditionally compile code to target the desktop.

Realtime Database desktop

The Realtime Database Desktop SDK uses REST to access your database, so you must declare the indexes you use with Query::OrderByChild() on desktop or your listeners will fail.

Additional information for desktop setup

Windows libraries

For Windows, library versions are provided based on the following:

• Build platform: 32-bit (x86) vs 64-bit (x64) mode
• Windows runtime environment: Multithreaded / MT vs Multithreaded DLL /MD
• Target: Release vs Debug

Note that the following libraries were tested using Visual Studio 2015 and 2017.

When building C++ desktop apps on Windows, link the following Windows SDK libraries to your project. Consult your compiler documentation for more information.

OS X libraries

For OS X (Darwin), library versions are provided for the 64-bit (x86_64) platform. Frameworks are also provided for your convenience.

Note that the OS X libraries have been tested using Xcode 9.4.1.

When building C++ desktop apps on OS X, link the following to your project:

• pthread system library
• CoreFoundation OS X system framework
• Foundation OS X system framework
• Security OS X system framework

Consult your compiler documentation for more information.

Linux libraries

For Linux, library versions are provided for 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) platforms.

Note that the Linux libraries were tested using GCC 4.8.0, GCC 7.2.0, and Clang 5.0 on Ubuntu.

When building C++ desktop apps on Linux, link the pthread system library to your project. Consult your compiler documentation for more information. If you're building with GCC 5 or later, define -D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0.

Next steps

• Explore sample Firebase apps.

• Explore the open source SDK in GitHub.

• Prepare to launch your app:

  • Set billing alerts.
  • Review the Firebase launch checklist.