Is it not possible to use "Analyze" with swift? [closed]

Question

Previously with objective-c code, I could "Analyze" - CMD + Shift + B and Xcode would warn me of all kinds of wrongdoings on my part.

It seems that with Swift, I can do no wrong! No warnings of any kind! But clearly there is a memory leak in my code.

Is there some setting I have to enable to get Swift to analyze my code properly? (I am aware I should use the profiler and test on an actual device, which I do, but I wonder why "Analyze" doesn't do anything.

Answer 1

Unfortunately no. Even many releases later, the latest version of XCode (6.4) still cannot do Swift analysis. The 'Analyze' option only works for the Objective C files in your project.

Let's hope the next version will have it, along with the refactoring capabilities which also are still limited to Objective C code.

Answer 2

To this moment (Xcode 8.3.x) Static Code analysis skips Swift code. Some Swift warnings cover some of the issues previously detected by the analyzer.

Also the upcoming Xcode 9 (presented in WWDC 2017) does not announce any change in this direction.

Many issues detected by the static Analyzer of Obj-C are for the most part prevented by the actual Swift language (e.g. unintended fall-through in switch statements). Other issues and scenarios formerly caught by the analyser, are now caught directly by the Swift compiler.

Many flows and scenarios leading to program crash - (e.g. accessing null pointers, leaving dangling pointers, or accessing released memory blocks) are hardly possible in Swift. Swift strong typing, heavy use of optionals, the requirement to completely cover protocols, and switch-case over enums, etc. remove another bunch of issues previously found by the analyzer.

A Swift static code analyzer will need to go to another level in analyzing program logic, which is much harder, and theoretically impossible to do completely.

So - although I'm quite thrilled to think of some future Xcode Analyzer, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it