Swifty Swift Vim

Swifty Swift Vim is a semantic backend for the Swift programming language tailored to the needs of editing source code.

The project was founded to fulfil the need of semantic Swift support in text editors and integrate Swift into text editors.

iCompleteMe Vim Usage

iCompleteMe implements the Vim level UI code and client library.

Head on over to iCompleteMe to get up and running.

emacs-ycmd

Support for icmd / SwiftySwiftVim has now been merged into emacs-ycmd. To get it working you can use the following:

(setq ycmd-server-command `(,(file-truename "~/.pyenv/shims/python")
                            ,(file-truename "~/.icmd/ycmd")))
(add-hook 'swift-mode-hook #'ycmd-mode)
(add-hook 'company-mode-hook #'company-ycmd-setup)

where ~/.icmd points to your icmd installation.

Compilation Database

By default, it provides a basic level of completion support: completions within a single file.

In most cases, build options and dependencies need to be specified to have a good experience.

SwiftySwiftVim uses a Compilation Database to import compiler settings. Setup the build system to generate one at the workspace root.

For Xcode Project users, XcodeCompilationDatabase makes this easy.

Supported Features

• Code Completion
• Semantic Diagnostics ( at the server level )

Technical Design

It implements Semantic abilities based on the Swift programming language and exposes them via an HTTP server.

It includes the following components

• A semantic engine for Swift.
• An HTTP server.

Semantic Engine

The semantic engine is based on the Swift compiler and related APIs.

When reasonable, capabilities leverage SourceKit, the highest level Swift tooling API. This leverages code reuse, and by using the highest level APIs as possible, will simplify keeping the completer both feature complete and up to date.

It makes calls to SourceKit via the sourcekitd client. This is to consumes the SourceKit API at the highest level and is similar usage of these features in Xcode.

It links against the prebuilt sourcekitd binary in Xcode to simplify distribution and development.

Features

It should support:

• code completion
• semantic diagnostics
• symbol navigation ( GoTo definition and more )
• symbol usage
• documentation rendering
• semantic searches

It should also support compile command configuration via flags and a JSON compilation database to support complex projects, similar to clang's JSON compilation database. Finally, it should be blazing fast and stable.

HTTP Frontend

Semantic abilities are exposed through an HTTP protocol. It should be high performance and serve multiple requests at a time to meet the needs of users who can make a lot of requests. The protocol is a JSON protocol to simplify consumer usage and minimize dependencies.

The HTTP frontend is built on Beast HTTP and Boost ASIO, a platform for constructing high performance web services.

From a users perspective, logic runs out of the text editor's processes on the HTTP server. The server is primarily designed to work with YCMD. See Valloric's article for more on this.

Development

bootstrap the repository and build.

  ./bootstrap

I log random musings about developing this and more in notes.txt.

This project is still in early phases, and development happens sporadically.

Contributions welcome

Ideas for starter projects

• Improve readme and setup guide in iCompleteMe or iCMD
• Design an end to end integration testing system
• Get GoToDefinition working end to end
• Implement a semantic search engine

Acknowledgements

The HTTP server stands on the shoulders of Beast(s). Many thanks to @vinniefalco for Beast and his guidance for getting this up and running.

Thank you Apple for opening up the Swift compiler and IDE facilities. This project would not be possible without this.

Thanks to @Valloric and the YCMD/YouCompleteMe team!