objc.v

Interacting with Objective-C from V

This is needed for several things:

• Replace the # prefix for inlining objc code in _darwin files
• Write iOS and macOS apps in pure V
• No .m code involved
• UIKit and other libraries will be set on top of this one

-- by pancake

Status

The current implementation is working and stable, it could be more strict in types and can extend the amount of supported framework APIs.

Example

import trufae.objc.ns

fn main() {
    ap := ns.new_nsautorelease_pool()
    a := ns.new_nsstring('hello world')
    println('$a') // automatic .str() unwrapping
    ap.drain()
}

Future

If this module gets integrated into the compiler it would be possible to do dynamic typing by sending objc messages.

Proposed syntaxes:

// class vs variable? maybe use a string syntax?
mmm := objc[NSString initWithCharacters: 'hello' length: 5]
mmm := objc[NSString initWithString: 'hello']
sss := objc[mmm initWithString: 'hello']
sss := objc.call([mmm, 'initWithString:', 'hello', 'length:', 5]) // XXX this looks wrong to me
 ..
msg := NSString(objc.call('NSString stringWithUTF8String:', ['hello world']))
gsm := objc.call('$msg append:', [' !!!!'])
 ..
msg := objc [ NSString stringWithUTF8String: 'hello world' ]
 ..
msg := [ 'NSString' stringWithUTF8String: 'hello world' ]
sss := [ msg stringWithUTF8String: 'hello world' ]

// as type definition, looks fun because it fits the struct syntax, but its actually calling code
type NSString = objc.Class
msg := NSString {
    stringWithCharacters: 'hello'
    length: 5
}
gsm := msg { append: ' world' }

// so it may be better to pick a different syntax for it
msg := objc.lookup_class('NSString').call({
    initWithString: 'hello'
})

..

Links for inspiration:

• https://github.com/frida/frida-objc-bridge/blob/master/index.js