I found that there is help for Pod if entered as Pod --help.
From there I learned that you can create a Podfile in the currently pointed to directory by typing Pod init. I did that and it created a second Podfile in my project root directory, right alongside the one I created. The file created with init is listed as a text file. The one I created is listed as a TextEdit Document. Neither has an extension but somehow they are different, which might explain why pod install could not find a pod file.
I put the line: pod “Spark-SDK” in the file created by pod init. I ran pod install and got this error message:
Bendrixs-MacBook-Pro:Spark_SDK_First_Try bendrix$ pod install
[!] Invalid Podfile file: undefined local variable or method `“Spark’ for #Pod::Podfile:0x007f8fc3af4600. Updating CocoaPods might fix the issue.
from /Users/bendrix/Desktop/Spark_SDK_First_Try/Podfile:1
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pod “Spark-SDK”
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Since I just installed Cocoapods yesterday, the suggested update of cocoapods is not likely to be the source of the problem.