SWIG

SWIG is an open source, completely free, multiplatform and portable interface compiler, a C/C++ command-line program that allows developers to connect their applications with various other scripting/programming languages.

It has been designed from the ground up to be used for capturing C/C++ header files’ declarations and generate the wrapper code required by the scripting languages for accessing the underlying C/C++ code.

Features at a glance

Key features include class and structure extension, exception handling, memory management, template instantiation, ambiguity resolution, file import and cross-module linking, extended SWIG macro handling, extensive diagnostics, as well as code inclusion.

SWIG supports several popular programming languages, including Allegro CL, C#, CFFI, CLISP, Chicken, Guile, Java, Lua, Modula-3, Mzscheme, OCAML, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl, and UFFI.

Additionally, SWIG provides a full C pre-processor that contains features like macro expansion, automatic wrapping of #define statements as constants, support for customized type conversion and marshaling, helper function support, as well as support for C99.

Can be used to generate numerous wrappers

The program can be used from the command-line interface to generate numerous wrappers for several programming languages, including ALLEGROCL, CHICKEN, CLISP, CFFI, C#, D, Go, Guile, Java, JavaScript, Lua, Modula 3, Mzscheme, Ocaml, Octave, Perl, PHP, Pike, Python, R, Ruby, Lisp, Tcl, Common Lisp and XML.

A wide range of command-line options are implemented, allowing you to interact with SWIG’s built-in functionality. These and several usage examples can be viewed at a glance by running the ‘swig --help’ command in any terminal emulator application.

Runs on Linux, Mac and Windows

SWIG runs on all GNU/Linux distributions, as well as on the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, supporting 64-bit and 32-bit flavors. It is written in the C++ and C programming languages. Detailed installation instructions are provided on the project’s homepage (see link below).

What is new in this release:

• Add support for Octave-4.0.0.
• Remove potential Android security exploit in generated Java classes.
• Minor new features and bug fixes.

What is new in version 3.0.7:

• Add support for Octave-4.0.0.
• Remove potential Android security exploit in generated Java classes.
• Minor new features and bug fixes.

What is new in version 3.0.6:

• Stability and regression fixes.
• Fixed parsing of C++ corner cases.
• Language improvements and bug fixes for C#, Go, Java, Lua, Python, R.

What is new in version 3.0.5:

• An important Python fix for a regression in SWIG-3.0.3 when wrapping C++ default arguments.
• Minor improvements for C#, Go, Octave, PHP and Python.

What is new in version 3.0.3:

• Add support for C++11 strongly typed enumerations.
• Numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements for C#, D, Go, Java, Javascript, PHP, Perl and Python wrappers.

What is new in version 3.0.2:

• This release has been made to fix a bug during installation, but it also includes a couple of other rather minor changes.

What is new in version 2.0.12:

• This is a maintenance release backporting some fixes from the pending 3.0.0 release.
• Octave 3.8 support added.
• C++11 support for new versions of erase/insert in the STL containers.
• Compilation fixes on some systems for the generated Lua, PHP, Python and R wrappers.

What is new in version 1.3.37:

• Python 3 support added
• SWIG now ships with a version of ccache that can be used with SWIG. This enables the files generated by SWIG to be cached so that repeated use of SWIG on unchanged input files speeds up builds quite considerably.
• PHP 4 support removed and PHP support improved in general
• Improved C# array support
• Numerous Allegro CL improvements