Swift 6.4 Released
9 hours ago
- Swift 6.4 is now available, enhancing support across apps, servers, systems, embedded devices, and the browser, with a focus on making everyday code easier to write.
- Swift Build becomes the default in Swift Package Manager, ensuring consistent builds on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
- The Subprocess library reaches version 1.0, providing a stable, cross-platform way to run and interact with other programs using Swift concurrency.
- Interoperability improves: Swift's Span bridges directly with C++20's std::span, and Swift/Java interop extends async and callback support.
- WebAssembly performance boosts: JavaScriptKit bridging is up to 40 times faster, and the Wasm SDK is available directly from Swift.org.
- Embedded Swift gains support for existential types and richer error handling for microcontroller-class targets.
- Performance and memory safety improve with new array types for non-copyable elements and the Iterable protocol to avoid copies.
- Code simplification includes natural optional 'some' and 'any' types without parentheses, source-level warning control via @diagnose, module selectors to resolve API conflicts, async calls in defer blocks, and cancellation shields.
- Foundation enhancements: ProgressManager adds async/await support, @Observable types get fine-grained change notifications, and Subprocess reaches 1.0.
- Testing improvements: safer use of XCTAssert and #expect, CustomTestReflectable for custom failure messages, repeatable test cases, and Transferable attachments on Apple platforms.
- Tooling upgrades: more robust debugging with precise module tracking, unified build system with SBOM generation, and broader IDE support via VS Code extension on Open VSX Registry.
- Deeper platform support: C interop with @c and @implementation, C++ std::span bridging, Java interop improvements, WebAssembly with faster JavaScriptKit, Android with NDK 30, and Embedded Swift enhancements.
- Performance-focused features: borrow and mutate accessors, non-copyable types conforming to Equatable/Comparable/Hashable, UniqueBox and UniqueArray for efficient storage, and safe raw memory access APIs.
- Swift 6.4 includes contributions from the community and is available for download via the Install Swift page or Swiftly toolchain.