Time to get back to something we mentioned in Creating a Plugin, part one — how plugin.xml maps cordova.exec requests to our actual native code.

Plugin class mapping

Let’s take a look at the tail end of our plugin.xml again:

    <platform name="android">
        <config-file target="res/xml/config.xml" parent="/*">
            <feature name="IsPrime" >
                <param name="android-package" value="com.kerrishotts.example.isprime.IsPrime"/>
            </feature>
        </config-file>
        <source-file src="src/android/IsPrime.java" target-dir="src/com/kerrishotts/example/isprime" />
        <source-file src="src/android/InspectableThreadPoolExecutor.java" target-dir="src/com/kerrishotts/example/isprime" />
        <source-file src="src/android/IsPrimeRunnable.java" target-dir="src/com/kerrishotts/example/isprime" />
    </platform>

    <platform name="ios">
        <config-file target="config.xml" parent="/*">
            <feature name="IsPrime">
                <param name="ios-package" value="CDVIsPrime"/>
            </feature>
        </config-file>
        <source-file src="src/ios/CDVIsPrime.m" />
    </platform>

    <platform name="browser">
        <js-module src="src/browser/IsPrimeProxy.js" name="IsPrimeProxy">
            <runs />
        </js-module>
    </platform>

    <platform name="windows">
        <js-module src="src/windows/IsPrimeProxy.js" name="IsPrimeProxy">
            <runs />
        </js-module>
        <!-- if using managed code in prior section -->
        <framework src="src/windows/IsPrimeRuntimeComponent/IsPrimeRuntimeComponent/bin/Release/IsPrimeRuntimeComponent.winmd" custom="true"/>
    </platform>

Now that we’ve written some code, hopefully this begins to make some more sense. Essentially, plugin.xml is not just indicating where our source files are, but the location to which they should be copied, and how service names are mapped to native plugin code.

Here’s a couple of pictures that should make the mapping even more obvious:

For proxy-based platforms, the mapping is handled by the proxy JavaScript module, which is why a <js-module> with a <runs> child is used instead.

Dependencies

Many times one will need to specify some dependencies. You can add both plugins and platforms as dependencies. The method differs by Cordova version.

• pre-Cordova 6.1.0
  • Managed by plugin.xml
  • plugin dependencies (eg; docs) ```xml

    * platform & tool dependencies ([eg];(https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-inappbrowser/blob/92ca973b3da3c79fd4bba1e1ca8a12c75a1b6260/plugin.xml#L32) ; [docs](https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/plugin_ref/spec.html#engines-and-engine))
    ```xml
    <engines>
        <engine name="cordova" version=">=3.1.0" />
    </engines>
  

• Cordova 6.1.0 and later
  • Managed in package.json
  • Full docs

      "engines": {
          "cordovaDependencies": {
              "2.0.0": { // plugin version (applies to any ver 2+)
                  "cordova-plugin-console": ">1.0.0",
                  "cordova": ">6.0.0" // cordova-cli above version 6
              }
          }
      }
    

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