Swift is powerful, fast and safe programming language. From version 2 it’s open source, and officialy supported on Linux. Its native performance, type safety, interactive (REPL) playground and scripting posibility, is a joy to use.

The main goal for Swift on Linux is to be compatible with Swift on macOS/ios/watchos, and there is an official Apple documentation for Foundation. Howerever, this quick cheat-sheet gives you quick glance what this language+standard library is capable of.

Setup

There are 2 ways to install Swift 4 for server side applications:

  1. Standard installation:

    Download Swift 4.0 from: swift.org for your Ubuntu distribution, following manual

  2. You can also use Docker instead, (it runs on all distros)
docker run --rm --privileged -ti swiftdocker/swift:latest /usr/bin/swift -I /usr/lib/swift/clang/include/

What’s so special about Swift 4 ?

How to use this tutorial

  • Make sure you read this great intro to Swift 4
  • This tutorial is about using Foundation API’s, it’s not a language guide.
  • This tutorial doesn’t cover writing web app in swift, though – it’s coming soon!

To play with examples in this tutorial, you can use swift REPL. You also compile the code with swiftc [file.swift]

  1. To run REPL:
    1. On Mac – just type swift
    2. Linux – type: swift -I /usr/lib/swift/clang/include/
  2. You can also use XCode playground – fire up Xcode, then File -> New -> Playground

More capabilities of Swift REPL here

Printing text

>print("Hello world!")
Hello world

>print("""
Hello\nworld!
""") 	
Hello
world

>print("one", "two", "three")
one two three

>print("one", "two", "three", separator: ",")
one,two,three

>print("one", "two", "three", separator: "\n")
one
two
three

>print(1, "and", 2)
1 and 2

Printing to stderr


import Foundation
FileHandle.standardError.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)

Printing to stdin

    
import Foundation

FileHandle.standardError.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)
FileHandle.standardInput.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)
FileHandle.standardOutput.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)

Executing shell commands

Run process with arguments and wait for completion

	
import Foundation

let p = Process()
p.launchPath = "/usr/bin/wc"
p.arguments = ["-l", "/etc/passwd"]
p.launch()
p.waitUntilExit()

Suspend and resume process in background


import Foundation

let p = Process()
p.launchPath = "/bin/cat"
p.arguments = ["/var/log/system.log"]
p.launch()
p.suspend()
sleep(1)
p.resume()
sleep(1)
p.terminate()

Monitor process running in background

This example prints system logs for 10 seconds, and then exits.

    
import Foundation

let p = Process()
p.launchPath = "/usr/bin/tail"
p.arguments = ["-f", "/var/log/system.log"]
p.launch()

var elapsedSeconds = 10
while p.isRunning && elapsedSeconds > 0  {
  print("Running")
  sleep(1)
  elapsedSeconds -= 1
}

Redirect stdin / stdout

    
import Foundation

let p = Process()
p.launchPath = "/bin/cat"
p.arguments = ["-"]

let pp = Pipe()

p.standardInput = pp

p.launch()
pp.fileHandleForWriting.write("test\n\u{4}".data(using: .utf8)!)
p.waitUntilExit()

Networking

Download HTTP document

    
import Foundation

let downloadURL = URL(string: "http://www.google.com")!
let contents = String(contentsOf: downloadURL, encoding: .utf8)
print(contents)

Download HTTP document and autodetect(sniff) encoding

     
import Foundation

var x: String.Encoding = String.Encoding.ascii 
let url = "https://www.ecma-inational.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma-128.pdf"
try? String(contentsOf: URL(
            string: url)!, 
            usedEncoding: &x) 

print(x)

Download binary file

    
import Foundation

let fileContents = Data(contentsOf: URL("http://filea.x")!)

Note: It uses RAM memory to store entire file in it, it can be handy for smaller files / quick scripts.

Download in parts(chunks)

    
import Foundation
import Dispatch

let config = URLSessionConfiguration.default
let s = URLSession(configuration: config)

let task = s.downloadTask(with: URL(string: "http://google.com")!) { url, response, err in
    count += 1
    print(count)
}
task.resume()

Filesystem operations

Read binary file

    
import Foundation

let binaryData = Data(contentsOf: URL(fileURLWithPath: "/tmp/a.x"))

Read text file

    
import Foundation

let textFile = String(contentsOf: URL(fileURLWithPath: "/etc/passwd"))

Write to text file


import Foundation

"hello world".write(toFile: "/etc/xxx", atomically: true, encoding: .utf8)

Write to stderr


import Foundation

FileHandle.standardError.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)

Write to stdin

    
import Foundation

FileHandle.standardError.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)
FileHandle.standardInput.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)
FileHandle.standardOutput.write("test".data(using: .utf8)!)

Read data in chunks

    
import Foundation

let f = FileHandle(forReadingAtPath: "/etc/passwd")
f!.readData(ofLength: 10)

// all: 
f!.readDataToEndOfFile()

Check if file is readable

    
import Foundation

if FileManager.default.isReadableFile(atPath: "/etc/fstab") {

}

Remove file

    
import Foundation

FileManager.default.removeItem(at: URL(fileURLWithPath: "/tmp/x")!)

Copy file

    
import Foundation

FileManager.default.copyItem(atPath: "from.txt", toPath: "to.txt")

Copy directory


import Foundation

FileManager.default.copyItem(atPath: "/etc/", toPath: "/etc.backup")

List directories

    
import Foundation

// Shallow list without folders
for entry in FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(atPath: "/") {

}

// deep list
for item in  FileManager.default.enumerator(atPath: "/etc")! {  
  print(item) 
}

Recursively list files


import Foundation

FileManager.default.subpathsOfDirectory(atPath: "/root/")

Create directory with permissions

    
import Foundation

let permission = 0o700 as NSNumber

FileManager.default.createDirectory(
  atPath: "/tmp/my/brand/new/directory", 
  withIntermediateDirectories: true, 
  attributes: [.posixPermissions: permission]
)

Coroutines / threads /

Swift comes with LibDispatch which uses threads and queues for dealing with asynchronous tasks.

Concurrent requests example

        
import Foundation
import Dispatch

let config = URLSessionConfiguration.default

let s = URLSession(configuration: config)

var count = 0
for i in 1...100 {

let task = s.downloadTask(with: URL(string: "http://www.wp.pl")!) { url, response, err in
  count += 1
  print(count)

}
task.resume()
print("Started")

}
dispatchMain()

Scripting with Swift

You can use Swift as a interpreted language, too with pure text files!

Just create swift file:

    
touch /tmp/hello && chmod a+x /tmp/hello

With contents:

    
#!/usr/bin/xcrun swift
  
import Foundation

print("Hello, what's your name?")
let name = readLine(strippingNewline: true)
print("Hello, \(name)")

Run it with /tmp/hello

Voila! You can execute any of examples using this technique.