We built an interpreter for Swift (a compiled language)
6 days ago
- #Swift
- #Interpreter
- #Mobile Development
- Bitrig dynamically generates and runs Swift apps on an iPhone without requiring compilation or signing with Xcode.
- The team built a Swift interpreter that interprets Swift code into Swift, leveraging SwiftSyntax for parsing logic.
- Runtime values are represented using an enum (InterpreterValue) to handle literals and custom types dynamically.
- Framework APIs (e.g., SwiftUI) are called by pre-compiling dynamic arguments into compiled Swift functions.
- Stub types (e.g., ShapeStub, ViewStub) enable custom types to conform to framework protocols at runtime.
- The interpreter relies on .swiftinterface files to generate code for calling into framework APIs automatically.
- Basic operations (e.g., numeric calculations) delegate to framework implementations rather than being handled natively.
- Bitrig's interpreter acts more like a foreign function interface between dynamic and compiled Swift.