Xamarin Binding Tools For Swift

Welcome!

This module is the main repository for Binding Tools for Swift.

This is a set of tools that can consume a compiled Apple Swift library and generates wrappers that allow it to be surfaced as a .NET library.

Quickstart

Check out our quickstart guide to build and run the tool locally.

The packaging of BTFS is still evolving, and we expect to provide a binding project style interface to make this process easier in the future.

Current Status

What Binds?

• Classes
• Structs
• Enums
• Protocols without associated types
• Top-level functions and variables
• Generic classes, structs, and enums
• Escaping closures
• Support of @ObjC types
• Protocol composition types in non-virtual methods
• Exceptions
• Extensions

What Doesn’t Bind Yet?

• Protocols with associated types
• Bound generic types with closures
• Non-escaping closures

What Else Can I Expect?

• An open class in Swift can be subclassed in C# and the subclass can be passed in to Swift. Overridden virtual methods in C# will be called when invoked from Swift.
• A C# type implementing an interface bound to a Swift protocol can be passed in to Swift. Methods and properties in the C# interface implementation will be called when invoked from Swift.
• At runtime, the generated code honors the Swift Automatic Reference Counting as well as .NET garbage collection.
• When writing bindings, the code generator tries hard to generate something. If an API uses a type that’s not supported yet, that API will be flagged and skipped.

Technical Documentation

The docs directory contains a detailed walkthrough of how things work under the hood.

In particular the functional outline is a great place to start exploring.

Feedback

• Discuss development and design on Gitter

License

Copyright (c) .NET Foundation Contributors. All rights reserved. Licensed under the MIT License.