SwiftLint – Linter for Swift code

A tool to enforce Swift style and conventions, loosely based on the now archived GitHub Swift Style Guide. SwiftLint enforces the style guide rules that are generally accepted by the Swift community. These rules are well described in popular style guides like Ray Wenderlich’s Swift Style Guide.

Usage

Presentation

To get a high-level overview of recommended ways to integrate SwiftLint into your project, we encourage you to watch this presentation or read the transcript.

Xcode

Integrate SwiftLint into your Xcode project to get warnings and errors displayed in the issue navigator.

To do this select the project in the file navigator, then select the primary app target, and go to Build Phases. Click the + and select “New Run Script Phase”. Insert the following as the script:

If you installed SwiftLint via Homebrew on Apple Silicon, you might experience this warning:

Warning: SwiftLint not installed, download from https://github.com/realm/SwiftLint

That is because Homebrew on Apple Silicon installs the binaries into the /opt/homebrew/bin folder by default. To instruct Xcode where to find SwiftLint, you can either add /opt/homebrew/bin to the PATH environment variable in your build phase

export PATH="$PATH:/opt/homebrew/bin"
if which swiftlint > /dev/null; then
  swiftlint
else
  echo "warning: SwiftLint not installed, download from https://github.com/realm/SwiftLint"
fi

or you can create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin pointing to the actual binary:

ln -s /opt/homebrew/bin/swiftlint /usr/local/bin

You might want to move your SwiftLint phase directly before the ‘Compile Sources’ step to detect errors quickly before compiling. However, SwiftLint is designed to run on valid Swift code that cleanly completes the compiler’s parsing stage. So running SwiftLint before ‘Compile Sources’ might yield some incorrect results.

If you wish to fix violations as well, your script could run swiftlint --fix && swiftlint instead of just swiftlint. This will mean that all correctable violations are fixed, while ensuring warnings show up in your project for remaining violations.

If you’ve installed SwiftLint via CocoaPods the script should look like this:

"${PODS_ROOT}/SwiftLint/swiftlint"

Format on Save Xcode Plugin

To run swiftlint --fix on save in Xcode, install the SwiftLintXcode plugin from Alcatraz.

This plugin will not work with Xcode 8 or later without disabling SIP. This is not recommended.

AppCode

To integrate SwiftLint with AppCode, install this plugin and configure SwiftLint’s installed path in the plugin’s preferences. The fix action is available via ⌥⏎.

Atom

To integrate SwiftLint with Atom, install the linter-swiftlint package from APM.

Visual Studio Code

To integrate SwiftLint with vscode, install the vscode-swiftlint extension from the marketplace.

fastlane

You can use the official swiftlint fastlane action to run SwiftLint as part of your fastlane process.

swiftlint(
    mode: :lint,                            # SwiftLint mode: :lint (default) or :autocorrect
    executable: "Pods/SwiftLint/swiftlint", # The SwiftLint binary path (optional). Important if you've installed it via CocoaPods
    path: "/path/to/lint",                  # Specify path to lint (optional)
    output_file: "swiftlint.result.json",   # The path of the output file (optional)
    reporter: "json",                       # The custom reporter to use (optional)
    config_file: ".swiftlint-ci.yml",       # The path of the configuration file (optional)
    files: [                                # List of files to process (optional)
        "AppDelegate.swift",
        "path/to/project/Model.swift"
    ],
    ignore_exit_status: true,               # Allow fastlane to continue even if SwiftLint returns a non-zero exit status (Default: false)
    quiet: true,                            # Don't print status logs like 'Linting ' & 'Done linting' (Default: false)
    strict: true                            # Fail on warnings? (Default: false)
)

Docker

swiftlint is also available as a Docker image using Ubuntu. So just the first time you need to pull the docker image using the next command:

docker pull ghcr.io/realm/swiftlint:latest

Then following times, you just run swiftlint inside of the docker like:

docker run -it -v `pwd`:`pwd` -w `pwd` ghcr.io/realm/swiftlint:latest

This will execute swiftlint in the folder where you are right now (pwd), showing an output like:

$ docker run -it -v `pwd`:`pwd` -w `pwd` ghcr.io/realm/swiftlint:latest
Linting Swift files in current working directory
Linting 'RuleDocumentation.swift' (1/490)
...
Linting 'YamlSwiftLintTests.swift' (490/490)
Done linting! Found 0 violations, 0 serious in 490 files.

Here you have more documentation about the usage of Docker Images.

Command Line

$ swiftlint help
OVERVIEW: A tool to enforce Swift style and conventions.

USAGE: swiftlint <subcommand>

OPTIONS:
  --version               Show the version.
  -h, --help              Show help information.

SUBCOMMANDS:
  analyze                 Run analysis rules
  docs                    Open SwiftLint documentation website in the default web browser
  generate-docs           Generates markdown documentation for all rules
  lint (default)          Print lint warnings and errors
  rules                   Display the list of rules and their identifiers
  version                 Display the current version of SwiftLint

  See 'swiftlint help <subcommand>' for detailed help.

Run swiftlint in the directory containing the Swift files to lint. Directories will be searched recursively.

To specify a list of files when using lint or analyze (like the list of files modified by Xcode specified by the ExtraBuildPhase Xcode plugin, or modified files in the working tree based on git ls-files -m), you can do so by passing the option --use-script-input-files and setting the following instance variables: SCRIPT_INPUT_FILE_COUNT and SCRIPT_INPUT_FILE_0, SCRIPT_INPUT_FILE_1…SCRIPT_INPUT_FILE_{SCRIPT_INPUT_FILE_COUNT - 1}.

These are same environment variables set for input files to custom Xcode script phases.

Working With Multiple Swift Versions

SwiftLint hooks into SourceKit so it continues working even as Swift evolves!

This also keeps SwiftLint lean, as it doesn’t need to ship with a full Swift compiler, it just communicates with the official one you already have installed on your machine.

You should always run SwiftLint with the same toolchain you use to compile your code.

You may want to override SwiftLint’s default Swift toolchain if you have multiple toolchains or Xcodes installed.

Here’s the order in which SwiftLint determines which Swift toolchain to use:

• $XCODE_DEFAULT_TOOLCHAIN_OVERRIDE
• $TOOLCHAIN_DIR or $TOOLCHAINS
• xcrun -find swift
• /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain
• /Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain
• ~/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain
• ~/Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain

sourcekitd.framework is expected to be found in the usr/lib/ subdirectory of the value passed in the paths above.

You may also set the TOOLCHAINS environment variable to the reverse-DNS notation that identifies a Swift toolchain version:

$ TOOLCHAINS=com.apple.dt.toolchain.Swift_2_3 swiftlint --fix

On Linux, SourceKit is expected to be located in /usr/lib/libsourcekitdInProc.so or specified by the LINUX_SOURCEKIT_LIB_PATH environment variable.

pre-commit

SwiftLint can be run as a pre-commit hook. Once installed, add this to the .pre-commit-config.yaml in the root of your repository:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/realm/SwiftLint
    rev: 0.44.0
    hooks:
      - id: swiftlint

Adjust rev to the SwiftLint version of your choice.

Rules

Over 200 rules are included in SwiftLint and the Swift community (that’s you!) continues to contribute more over time. Pull requests are encouraged.

You can find an updated list of rules and more information about them here.

You can also check Source/SwiftLintFramework/Rules directory to see their implementation.

Opt-In Rules

opt_in_rules are disabled by default (i.e., you have to explicitly enable them in your configuration file).

Guidelines on when to mark a rule as opt-in:

• A rule that can have many false positives (e.g. empty_count)
• A rule that is too slow
• A rule that is not general consensus or is only useful in some cases (e.g. force_unwrapping)

Disable rules in code

Rules can be disabled with a comment inside a source file with the following format:

// swiftlint:disable <rule1> [<rule2> <rule3>...]

The rules will be disabled until the end of the file or until the linter sees a matching enable comment:

// swiftlint:enable <rule1> [<rule2> <rule3>...]

For example:

// swiftlint:disable colon
let noWarning :String = "" // No warning about colons immediately after variable names!
// swiftlint:enable colon
let hasWarning :String = "" // Warning generated about colons immediately after variable names

Including the all keyword will disable all rules until the linter sees a matching enable comment:

// swiftlint:disable all // swiftlint:enable all

For example:

// swiftlint:disable all
let noWarning :String = "" // No warning about colons immediately after variable names!
let i = "" // Also no warning about short identifier names
// swiftlint:enable all
let hasWarning :String = "" // Warning generated about colons immediately after variable names
let y = "" // Warning generated about short identifier names

It’s also possible to modify a disable or enable command by appending :previous, :this or :next for only applying the command to the previous, this (current) or next line respectively.

For example:

// swiftlint:disable:next force_cast
let noWarning = NSNumber() as! Int
let hasWarning = NSNumber() as! Int
let noWarning2 = NSNumber() as! Int // swiftlint:disable:this force_cast
let noWarning3 = NSNumber() as! Int
// swiftlint:disable:previous force_cast

Run swiftlint rules to print a list of all available rules and their identifiers.

Configuration

Configure SwiftLint by adding a .swiftlint.yml file from the directory you’ll run SwiftLint from. The following parameters can be configured:

Rule inclusion:

• disabled_rules: Disable rules from the default enabled set.
• opt_in_rules: Enable rules not from the default set.
• only_rules: Only the rules specified in this list will be enabled. Cannot be specified alongside disabled_rules or opt_in_rules.
• analyzer_rules: This is an entirely separate list of rules that are only run by the analyze command. All analyzer rules are opt-in, so this is the only configurable rule list, there are no equivalents for disabled_rules only_rules.

# By default, SwiftLint uses a set of sensible default rules you can adjust:
disabled_rules: # rule identifiers turned on by default to exclude from running
  - colon
  - comma
  - control_statement
opt_in_rules: # some rules are turned off by default, so you need to opt-in
  - empty_count # Find all the available rules by running: `swiftlint rules`

# Alternatively, specify all rules explicitly by uncommenting this option:
# only_rules: # delete `disabled_rules` & `opt_in_rules` if using this
#   - empty_parameters
#   - vertical_whitespace

included: # paths to include during linting. `--path` is ignored if present.
  - Source
excluded: # paths to ignore during linting. Takes precedence over `included`.
  - Carthage
  - Pods
  - Source/ExcludedFolder
  - Source/ExcludedFile.swift
  - Source/*/ExcludedFile.swift # Exclude files with a wildcard
analyzer_rules: # Rules run by `swiftlint analyze`
  - explicit_self

# configurable rules can be customized from this configuration file
# binary rules can set their severity level
force_cast: warning # implicitly
force_try:
  severity: warning # explicitly
# rules that have both warning and error levels, can set just the warning level
# implicitly
line_length: 110
# they can set both implicitly with an array
type_body_length:
  - 300 # warning
  - 400 # error
# or they can set both explicitly
file_length:
  warning: 500
  error: 1200
# naming rules can set warnings/errors for min_length and max_length
# additionally they can set excluded names
type_name:
  min_length: 4 # only warning
  max_length: # warning and error
    warning: 40
    error: 50
  excluded: iPhone # excluded via string
  allowed_symbols: ["_"] # these are allowed in type names
identifier_name:
  min_length: # only min_length
    error: 4 # only error
  excluded: # excluded via string array
    - id
    - URL
    - GlobalAPIKey
reporter: "xcode" # reporter type (xcode, json, csv, checkstyle, codeclimate, junit, html, emoji, sonarqube, markdown, github-actions-logging)

You can also use environment variables in your configuration file, by using ${SOME_VARIABLE} in a string.

Defining Custom Rules

You can define custom regex-based rules in your configuration file using the following syntax:

custom_rules:
  pirates_beat_ninjas: # rule identifier
    included: ".*\\.swift" # regex that defines paths to include during linting. optional.
    excluded: ".*Test\\.swift" # regex that defines paths to exclude during linting. optional
    name: "Pirates Beat Ninjas" # rule name. optional.
    regex: "([nN]inja)" # matching pattern
    capture_group: 0 # number of regex capture group to highlight the rule violation at. optional.
    match_kinds: # SyntaxKinds to match. optional.
      - comment
      - identifier
    message: "Pirates are better than ninjas." # violation message. optional.
    severity: error # violation severity. optional.
  no_hiding_in_strings:
    regex: "([nN]inja)"
    match_kinds: string

This is what the output would look like:

You can filter the matches by providing one or more match_kinds, which will reject matches that include syntax kinds that are not present in this list. Here are all the possible syntax kinds:

• argument
• attribute.builtin
• attribute.id
• buildconfig.id
• buildconfig.keyword
• comment
• comment.mark
• comment.url
• doccomment
• doccomment.field
• identifier
• keyword
• number
• objectliteral
• parameter
• placeholder
• string
• string_interpolation_anchor
• typeidentifier

If using custom rules in combination with only_rules, make sure to add custom_rules as an item under only_rules.

Auto-correct

SwiftLint can automatically correct certain violations. Files on disk are overwritten with a corrected version.

Please make sure to have backups of these files before running swiftlint --fix, otherwise important data may be lost.

Standard linting is disabled while correcting because of the high likelihood of violations (or their offsets) being incorrect after modifying a file while applying corrections.

Analyze

The swiftlint analyze command can lint Swift files using the full type-checked AST. The compiler log path containing the clean swiftc build command invocation (incremental builds will fail) must be passed to analyze via the --compiler-log-path flag. e.g. --compiler-log-path /path/to/xcodebuild.log

This can be obtained by

1. Cleaning DerivedData (incremental builds won’t work with analyze)
2. Running xcodebuild -workspace {WORKSPACE}.xcworkspace -scheme {SCHEME} > xcodebuild.log
3. Running swiftlint analyze --compiler-log-path xcodebuild.log

Analyzer rules tend to be considerably slower than lint rules.

SwiftLint on GitHub: https://github.com/realm/SwiftLint
Platform: iOS/Swift
⭐️: 15.9К