Swift 5.1 Release Process
Swift 5.1 aims to achieve module stability for the language. On Apple platforms, it keeps binary compatibility with Swift 5.0 and future releases because the ABI is now stable.
Swift
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Evolving Swift On Apple Platforms After ABI Stability
Swift 5.0 achieves ABI stability on Apple platforms, allowing apps to use the OS-provided Swift runtime instead of bundling it, which reduces download sizes and enables better performance through deeper integration.
ABI Stability and More
Swift 5 achieves ABI stability on Apple platforms, ensuring binary compatibility for apps and libraries across future Swift versions without needing to embed the Swift runtime in app bundles.
Introducing the sourcekitd Stress Tester
Sourcekitd powers essential editor features like code completion and refactoring in Xcode and SourceKit-LSP, handling both syntactic and semantic requests for Swift files.
Swift 5 Exclusivity Enforcement
Swift 5 turns on runtime checks for exclusive access to memory by default in release builds.
Dictionary Services
The article explores dictionary-related APIs in Swift across Unix, macOS, and iOS, highlighting their role in features like spell check and semantic analysis.
Bundles and Packages
The article clarifies the distinction between bundles and packages on Apple platforms, often confused due to overlapping use cases.
CharacterSet
The article introduces CharacterSet, a Foundation type in Swift for manipulating Unicode scalar values, distinct from Set<Character> despite its name, as it conforms to the SetAlgebra protocol rather than storing Character values directly.
FileManager
On Apple platforms, the FileManager class in the Foundation framework provides a robust abstraction for file system operations like creating, reading, moving, copying, and deleting files and directories, using paths or file URLs.
DateComponents
The article introduces DateComponents, a versatile Foundation type in Swift for representing either a specific calendar date or a duration of time, emphasising its use over hardcoded time intervals like 60 * 60 * 24 for a day.
REPL Support for Swift Packages
The swift run command now includes a --repl option. This lets you start the Swift REPL and import library targets from a package.
How Mirror Works
Swift provides runtime type inspection through the Mirror API. This allows developers to examine arbitrary values and traverse object graphs without prior knowledge of types at compile time.
Swift 5.0 Release Process
Swift 5.0 aims to achieve ABI stability to enable a stable runtime for operating systems, with module stability as a key focus that may land in this release or a later 5.x update.
Swift 4.2 Released!
Swift 4.2 is a major update that enhances compile times, debugging, the standard library, and moves closer to binary compatibility, while maintaining source compatibility with Swift 4 and 4.1 but marking the last release to support Swift 3 compatibility.
CMDeviceMotion
The Core Motion framework in Swift simplifies access to iOS and watchOS device sensors, enabling innovative user interactions beyond touch by leveraging a dedicated motion coprocessor for efficient accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data processing.
CMMotionActivity
The Core Motion framework’s CMMotionActivityManager on iOS and watchOS uses a device’s motion coprocessor to process sensor data from accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers, determining user activities like walking, running, cycling, automotive travel, or being stationary with varying confidence levels.
Introducing Related Projects to Swift Forums
The Swift community continues to expand, with developers increasingly relying on ecosystem projects to streamline app development for specific tasks. To foster better interaction, Swift Forums has introduced a new top-level category called Related Projects.
Swift Community-Hosted Continuous Integration
Swift.org has expanded its continuous integration testing system to include community-hosted nodes for additional platforms.
Reimplementation of Implicitly Unwrapped Optionals
Swift 4.1 reimplements implicitly unwrapped optionals (IUOs) so they act as regular optionals with a flag that allows automatic unwrapping when needed, rather than as a distinct type.
Swift 4.1 Released!
Apple released Swift 4.1 as a minor update that maintains source compatibility with Swift 4.0. It adds generics features such as conditional conformance and synthesised Equatable and Hashable support.
Swift 4.2 Release Process
Swift 4.2 serves as a step towards ABI stability in Swift 5, incorporating ABI changes for performance, bug fixes, and targeted improvements to compile-time speed.
Code Size Optimization Mode in Swift 4.1
Swift 4.1 adds a new optimisation mode called -Osize. This mode helps reduce code size by 5 to 30 percent in some projects.
Swift Forums Now Open!
The Swift project has moved its main discussions from mailing lists to Swift Forums. The old mailing lists are shut down and archived, with their content imported into the new system.
Conditional Conformance in the Standard Library
Swift 4.1 adds conditional conformances, which let generic types like Array and Optional conform to protocols such as Equatable or Hashable only when their elements do.
Swift 4.1 Release Process
Swift 4.1 is a source-compatible update to Swift 4.0 that adds minor language enhancements, improves the Swift Package Manager and Linux support, and includes quality fixes to the compiler and standard library, but it lacks binary compatibility due to ABI stabilisation work for Swift 5.