New feature: swiftly proxies

cmcgee1024 · 2024-08-10T12:43:18.432Z

Hi All,

I have created a design proposal for swiftly proxies for more flexible toolchain selection during command invocation. For example, the toolchain can be selected, installed if necessary, using a special command-line argument with a '+' prefix:

swift build +5.10.1
clang -o foo.o foo.c +latest

There's also support for .swift-version files.

There's more detail in the pull request here:

github.com/swiftlang/swiftly

DRAFT: Swiftly proxies

swiftlang:main ← cmcgee1024:proxies-design

opened 12:17PM - 10 Aug 24 UTC

cmcgee1024

+30 -19

Add a design proposal for the new swiftly proxy system for more flexible routing… of command invocations to a toolchain. Here are some examples: ``` swift build +5.10.1 # Invokes 'swift build' from the installed 5.10.1 toolchain swift build +latest # invokes 'swift build' from the latest released toolchain ``` Both will download and automatically install the toolchain if a matching one isn't present. The selector is taking from the presence of the special '+' prefixed arguments. There is also support for reading the toolchain version from a `.swift-version` file if a selector isn't given. The `swiftly use` command will attempt to update a swift version file, or in special circumstances it will create the version file for you. There is also a special `swiftly install` with no selector argument that will attempt to install a toolchain version specified in a version file.

Your feedback is welcome.

Thank you,
Chris

wes1 · 2024-08-11T00:49:29.689Z

Caveat: not a swiftly user

I'm ok with wrappers that look like wrappers, but I personally don't like swift itself not only wrapping/driving swift tools, but also installing variants of itself, mainly because it's so much harder to police arguments than commands.

The alternative of having swiftly not only install but run commands (swiftly swift build ... or swiftly build ...) seems to give the proper notice.

Disclosure of self-interest: I say this having written clutch, a wrapper that builds swift scripts with dependencies, which garnered zero community interest :)

https://github.com/swift-nest/clutch

vns · 2024-08-11T10:18:30.484Z

cmcgee1024:

swift build +5.10.1

Cargo has similar syntax for invoking certain commands with different version. That's convenient. I'm not sure about implicit installation - I'd rather see an error suggesting install, but in general that's nice addition!