Swift Package Manager C-interop: Non-system libraries

Question

How can I use the Swift Package Manager to include C code (in my case, a single .c file and a header file) without requiring the user to install my C library into /usr/local/lib?

I had thought to create a Package in a subdirectory of my main package containing the header + lib, and use relative paths, and finally build with swift build -Xlinker ./relative/path/to/mylib, however I'm not having any success resolving the dependency since it's expected to be a standalone git repository. Error message is:

error: failed to clone; fatal: repository '/absolute/path/to/mylib' does not exist

Moreover it's not clear to me whether using the -Xlinker flag is the correct approach.

I can't use a bridging header with a pure SwiftPM approach and installing my library system-wide seems overkill as well as not very portable.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I have done that in this project on github. It replaces pthread_once_t by wrapping it in C and re-exposing it to swift. It was done as a fun exercise in getting around what Swift tries to limit you into since pthread_once_t and dispatch_once are not available directly.

Here is a trimmed down version the Package.swift file:

// swift-tools-version:4.0

import PackageDescription

let package = Package(
    name: "Once",
    products: [
        .library(
            name: "Once",
            targets: ["OnceC", "Once"]),
    ],
    dependencies: [
    ],
    targets: [
        .target(
            name: "OnceC",
            dependencies: [],
            path: "Sources/OnceC"),
        .target(
            name: "Once",
            dependencies: ["OnceC"],
            path: "Sources/Swift"),
        .testTarget(
            name: "OnceTests",
            dependencies: ["Once"]),
        ]
)

You can easily replace the product library with an executable. The main part is that the product's targets needs to contain both the C and Swift targets needed to build.

Then in your targets section make the swift target lists the C target as a dependency.

---

You can learn more about the required layout for C targets in the SwiftPM Usage.md here

C language targets

The C language targets are similar to Swift targets except that the C language libraries should contain a directory named include to hold the public headers.

To allow a Swift target to import a C language target, add a target dependency in the manifest file. Swift Package Manager will automatically generate a modulemap for each C language library target for these 3 cases:

• If include/Foo/Foo.h exists and Foo is the only directory under the include directory then include/Foo/Foo.h becomes the umbrella header.

• If include/Foo.h exists and include contains no other subdirectory then include/Foo.h becomes the umbrella header.

• Otherwise if the include directory only contains header files and no other subdirectory, it becomes the umbrella directory.

In case of complicated include layouts, a custom module.modulemap can be provided inside include. SwiftPM will error out if it can not generate a modulemap w.r.t the above rules.

For executable targets, only one valid C language main file is allowed i.e. it is invalid to have main.c and main.cpp in the same target.

---

The only other important thing is how you actually do your #import in the C code once it is compiled as a compatible module. If you use the import/Foo/Foo.h organization you need to use #include <Foo/Foo.h> and if you do import/Foo.h you can use #import "Foo.h".