Reduce app startup time by combining swift-libs

Michel_Loenngren · February 17, 2017, 9:58pm

All,

When starting an app that includes swift these libs are being loaded:

*libswiftCoreGraphics.dylib *
*libswiftDispatch.dylib *
*libswiftObjectiveC.dylib*
*libswiftCore.dylib*
*libswiftDarwin.dylib*
*libswiftFoundation.dylib*

which adds considerable delay to our app startup time (compared to running
a pure objective-c codebase). Is anybody aware of a way to reduce startup
by combining these libs into a single lib for faster load time?

Kind regards

Michel

Alex_Blewitt · February 20, 2017, 11:35am

At the moment, these are provided as individual libraries because they are built as separate libraries on the command line. It's possible to build a static version of the core library with swiftc -static-stdlib on Darwin (there are still work in progress items for Linux and Foundation).

github.com/apple/swift

[SR-730] Flag to statically link Swift standard library

opened 04:30AM - 14 Feb 16 UTC

closed 02:55AM - 31 Jan 19 UTC

drewcrawford

bug compiler legacy driver

| | | |------------------|-----------------|… |Previous ID | SR-730 | |Radar | None | |Original Reporter | @drewcrawford | |Type | Bug | |Status | Closed | |Resolution | Done | Attachment: [Download](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2727770/164961164-1a8d7c33-9edf-4e3b-9667-6086f96b95ce.gz) <details> <summary>Environment</summary> swift-DEVELOPMENT-SNAPSHOT-2016-02-08-a </details> <details> <summary>Additional Detail from JIRA</summary> | | | |------------------|-----------------| |Votes | 6 | |Component/s | Compiler | |Labels | Bug, Driver | |Assignee | @drewcrawford | |Priority | Medium | md5: 750294aa83c3f055bad270719f53d070 </details> **relates to**: * [SR-648](https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-648) swift package manager should have the option to produce statically linked binaries * [SR-2280](https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-2280) swiftc -static-stdlib option fails on Ubuntu 14.04 & 15.10 * [SR-727](https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-727) (emscripten support) Compile Swift code with statically linked stdlib * [SR-9821](https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-9821) Swift Static Standard Library is being treated as private api **Issue Description:** If I build an executable with swiftc: ``` java $ swiftc test.swift ``` Then I find out the Swift standard library was dynamically linked: ``` java $ otool -L test @rpath/libswiftCore.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0) ``` However, the binary distributions also have a static version that I didn't use: ``` java /Library/Developer/Toolchains/swift-latest.xctoolchain//usr/lib/swift_static/macosx/libswiftCore.a ``` I want to pass e.g. `-static-stdlib` to `swiftc` to compile a program that is statically linked with the Swift standard library.

However, note that the majority of the libraries that you list are also used in a pure objective-c codebase; for example, running otool -L on Mail.app gives:

  /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/CoreGraphics
  /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
  /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation
  /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation

(Dispatch is embedded in libSystem on Darwin)

So the libraries you load are the same ones (in effect) to the ones used by your Objective-C application, in all likelihood. The difference is probably in the way that the libraries are set up and the dispatch once code is executed - which are necessary steps in bringing the Swift runtime up for your application.

Alex

···

On 17 Feb 2017, at 21:58, Michel Loenngren via swift-dev <swift-dev@swift.org> wrote:

All,

When starting an app that includes swift these libs are being loaded:

libswiftCoreGraphics.dylib
libswiftDispatch.dylib
libswiftObjectiveC.dylib
libswiftCore.dylib
libswiftDarwin.dylib
libswiftFoundation.dylib

which adds considerable delay to our app startup time (compared to running a pure objective-c codebase). Is anybody aware of a way to reduce startup by combining these libs into a single lib for faster load time?