swift - How to remove sandbox without xcode

Question

Earlier I asked a question regarding generateCGImagesAsynchronously. Thankfully it got answered and works great.

The issue is that it only works as a Cocoa app on xcode. I am now trying to move this logic to an executable Swift package but AVFoundation code, such as generateCGImagesAsynchronously, won't work. That is, no error is raised but those functions seem to be mocked. I presume this might have to do with my package being sandboxed? I was able to remove the sandbox from the Cocoa app I previously wrote the code for, but I can't figure out how to do that for this executable.

I am new to Swift and trying to understand it and it's kind of frustrating to think that what I want my code to do is dependent on the IDE I am using.

If anyone can point me in the direction of where to read in the docs, or some other sources, on how to make programs without using xcode, that would be great. Thanks!

Here is my code:

import Darwin
import Foundation
import AppKit
import AVFoundation
import Cocoa


@discardableResult func writeCGImage(
    _ image: CGImage,
    to destinationURL: URL
) -> Bool {
    guard let destination = CGImageDestinationCreateWithURL(
        destinationURL as CFURL,
        kUTTypePNG,
        1,
        nil
    ) else { return false }
    CGImageDestinationAddImage(destination, image, nil)
    return CGImageDestinationFinalize(destination)
}


func imageGenCompletionHandler(
    requestedTime: CMTime,
    image: CGImage?,
    actualTime: CMTime,
    result: AVAssetImageGenerator.Result,
    error: Error?
) {
    guard let image = image else { return }
    let path = saveToPath.appendingPathComponent(
        "img(actualTime).png"
    )

    writeCGImage(image, to: path)
}


let arguments: [String] = Array(CommandLine.arguments.dropFirst())

// For now, we assume the second arg, which is the
// path that the user wants us to save to, always exists.
let saveToPath = URL(fileURLWithPath: arguments[1], isDirectory: true)

let vidURL = URL(fileURLWithPath: arguments[0])
let vidAsset = AVAsset(url: vidURL)
let vidDuration = vidAsset.duration

let imageGen = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: vidAsset)
var frameForTimes = [NSValue]()
let sampleCounts = 20
let totalTimeLength = Int(truncatingIfNeeded: vidDuration.value as Int64)
let steps = totalTimeLength / sampleCounts

for sampleCount in 0 ..< sampleCounts {
    let cmTime = CMTimeMake(
        value: Int64(sampleCount * steps),
        timescale: Int32(vidDuration.timescale)
    )
    frameForTimes.append(NSValue(time: cmTime))
}

imageGen.generateCGImagesAsynchronously(
    forTimes: frameForTimes,
    completionHandler: imageGenCompletionHandler
)

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65878304/how-to-remove-sandbox-without-xcode

Answer 1

As I said in a comment on your previous question, this has nothing to do with Xcode per se. Xcode just generates a lot of code and build commands for you.

macOS is a complex operating system and programs that want to use its more advanced features must follow certain patterns. One of this patterns is called the run loop. If you create a Cocoa app, you get most of these things for free.

Since you are trying to perform some asynchronous actions, you need a run loop. Appending this should work:

RunLoop.current.run()

Otherwise, your program will simply terminate when the main thread (your code) finishes. The run loop, however, causes the program to run a loop and wait for asynchronous events (this also includes UI interactions, for example) to occur.

Note that inserting this same line also fixes your issues from the other question.