Theos
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Theos is a cross-platform suite of development tools for managing, developing, and deploying iOS software without the use of Xcode. It is an important tool for people building extensions (tweaks) for jailbroken iOS; most extension developers use Theos.
Contents
Overview
The Theos suite of tools consists of a handful of important components:
- A project templating system (NIC), which creates ready-to-build empty projects for varying purposes
- A robust build system driven by GNU Make, capable of directly creating .deb packages for distribution in Cydia
- Logos, a built-in preprocessor-based library of directives designed to make MobileSubstrate extension development easy
Theos is primarily used for jailbreak-centric iOS development (such as MobileSubstrate extensions, PreferenceLoader bundles, and applications intended for distribution in Cydia), but can be used for other types of projects as well. This can be helpful for someone wishing to develop an iPhone SDK-based application without using Mac OS X or Xcode to do so, as Theos can be used on Linux and iOS as well.
Theos also includes Logify, which accepts a class header and generates a MobileSubstrate extension which hooks all of that class's methods, printing log messages when they are called. This helps a hook developer see when certain methods are invoked during use.
How to start using Theos
See Installation.
This Stack Overflow answer may also be helpful.
For reference, check out this Theos documentation by theiostream.
Theos variables
You can configure Theos by setting variables in a project's Makefile or having them exported as environment variables (affecting all your projects).
Appending export before a variable will cause the variable to affect all subprojects as well. This is very useful for certain variables such as SYSROOT and TARGET
This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it. From here?
Building
| Variable name | Description | Default value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| THEOS | The directory where Theos is installed on your machine. It is platform dependent | ||
| PACKAGE_VERSION | The current build's number | $(THEOS_PACKAGE_BASE_VERSION)-$(VERSION.INC_BUILD_NUMBER)
|
[1]
|
| ARCHS | List of architectures to build for.
Possible values: |
armv7 arm64 arm64e
|
arm64e devices in most cases can run arm64 binaries.
PreferenceLoader, however, cannot typically load arm64 bundles on arm64e devices. |
| TARGET | Target specification for the build. Some values can be excluded
Formatting: |
||
| SYSROOT | Root directory of the SDK you want to build this project with.
e.g. This value is only necessary if you need to build your project against a specific SDK |
$(THEOS)/SDKs/iPhoneOS<sdk_version>.sdk
|
|
| TWEAK_NAME | In _Tweak_ projects, the name of this project. | Theos will look for <TWEAK_NAME>.plist in your project directory, so ensure it shares the name defined here | |
| $(TWEAK_NAME)_FILES | A list of files to compile for the project. .x* files will be preprocessed via logos before compilation
Example value: |
shellscript macros can be used to include large amounts of files without having to manually type all of them. | |
| $(TWEAK_NAME)_GENERATOR | Specify the hooking generator for Logos. Possible values are MobileSubstrate and internal and are case-sensitive.
Example: |
MobileSubstrate
|
|
| THEOS_BUILD_DIR | Packages will be placed in the specified directory | .
|
|
| DEBUG | Set to 1 to enable debug mode. | undefined
|
Installation
| Variable name | Description | Default value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| THEOS_DEVICE_IP | IP used to install packages to a remote device. | (Can also be the name of a host defined in ~/.ssh/config) | |
| THEOS_DEVICE_PORT | Port used to install packages to a remote device. | ||
| INSTALL_TARGET_PROCESSES | Specify a list of processes to reload upon installation.
Example: |
||
| TARGET_INSTALL_REMOTE | Should Packages be installed locally? | 1, if THEOS_DEVICE_IP is set | Leaving THEOS_DEVICE_IP blank when building on-device should install packages locally. |
| THEOS_DEVICE_USER | User to log in as when installing the package | root | You shouldn't ever need to worry about this. |
| PREINSTALL_TARGET_PROCESSES | Space delimited list of processes to unload before installation |
Theos directories
This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it. From here?
| Path | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
layout
|
Acts as the root directory for the target device. Useful for Maintainer scripts and placing resources outside the project install path. | |
layout/DEBIAN
|
Directory inside layout folder where one can place maintainer scripts to execute commands upon installation or removal. | See https://wiki.debian.org/MaintainerScripts |
