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Embedded Swift -- ABI
⚠️ Embedded Swift is experimental. This document might be out of date with latest development.
‼️ Use the latest downloadable 'Trunk Development' snapshot from swift.org to use Embedded Swift. Public releases of Swift do not yet support Embedded Swift.
For an introduction and motivation into Embedded Swift, please see "A Vision for Embedded Swift", a Swift Evolution document highlighting the main goals and approaches.
ABI stability
The ABI of code generated by Embedded Swift is not currently stable. For a concrete compiler version, it will be consistent, but do not mix code built with different compiler versions.
Similarly, do not mix Embedded Swift code with full Swift code, as the ABIs are different. Details are described in the following sections.
Calling convention of Embedded Swift
As of today, Embedded Swift has identical calling convention to full Swift. However, this does not need to continue in the future, and there should not be expectations that the ABI of Embedded Swift is compatible with full Swift.
The compiler respects the ABIs and calling conventions of C and C++ when interoperating with code in those languages. Calling C/C++ functions from Embedded Swift code is supported, and similarly exporting Swift code via @_extern, @_cdecl or @_expose will match the right calling conventions that C/C++ expects.
Metadata ABI of Embedded Swift
Embedded Swift eliminates almost all metadata compared to full Swift. However, class metadata is still used, because those serve as vtables for dynamic dispatch of methods to implement runtime polymorphism. The layout of Embedded Swift's class metadata is different from full Swift:
- The super pointer pointing to the class metadata record for the superclass is stored at offset 0. If the class is a root class, it is null.
- The destructor pointer is stored at offset 1. This function is invoked by Swift's deallocator when the class instance is destroyed.
- The ivar destroyer is stored at offset 2. This function is invoked to destroy instance members when creation of the object is cancelled (e.g. in a failable initializer).
- Lastly, the vtable is stored at offset 3: For each Swift class in the class's inheritance hierarchy, in order starting from the root class and working down to the most derived class, the function pointers to the implementation of every method of the class in declaration order in stored.
Heap object layout in Embedded Swift
Heap objects have the following layout in Embedded Swift:
- The isa pointer (pointer to the class metadata) is stored at offset 0.
- The refcount is stored inline at offset 1.
- Normal stored properties follow.