How to detect in runtime that app uses swift

Question

I'm developing framework(objc) and I need to detect that application uses swift. It doesn't matter that app developed on swift completely or it's swift/objc hybrid.

Do you have and ideas how to get this information? I've thought about objc runtime but I don't know how I can implement that.

Great thanks.

I don't know why my previous question has been closed. But I'll try to be more focused: I need to get information how many clients which integrate my framework use swift as a programming language so I must to detect that a project uses swift.

First, no, it's highly unlikely you could detect that Swift was used. iOS apps are compiled... not interpreted. Second, even if you could, how would you be getting that information? Are you planning on putting some type of functionality in your framework that (secretly) sends data to your server when a user runs an app? — DonMag
– DonMag, Commented Jan 23, 2020 at 21:44
@DonMag maybe his stuff in fact is a reporting framework or has one as a dependency. Sending the described data shouldn't be that hard together with that all the other data-points that make marketing people happy. — Till
– Till, Commented Jan 23, 2020 at 22:36

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-23 14:49:53Z

4

Please find below the possible approach based on public documented dyld API available since iPhone2 and valid for all modern iOS versions. And libswiftCore.dylib is present always for swift.

Taking into account that Swift might be in some application plug-ins, the below function should be called regularly (or at least till first positive result) on your framework API call.

#import <mach-o/dyld.h>

BOOL isSwiftLoaded() {
    return NSVersionOfRunTimeLibrary("libswiftCore.dylib") != -1; 
            // -1 is documented indicator that library is not loaded
}

edited Aug 23, 2022 at 14:49

Martijn Pieters

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answered Jan 24, 2020 at 17:15

Asperi

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2 Comments

Alexander Zakatnov Over a year ago

That's great solution! Many thanks! Can you say where did you find the solution? I've read apple's documentation and a lot of other articles but I've never seen before your really great solution.

Asperi Over a year ago

Just experience... and all good habit, from C background, to read API headers/interfaces, even before documentation. ))

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