[swift-evolution] Proposal Idea : Library (third party) Importable Checking

[Jo Albright]

This is a thought from a current problem I am running into (and have ran into in the past).

If you want to write any code using a library, you must have that library imported into the file. Totally cool with this for most cases.

Situation :

Building a third party library that can be used by others to simplify working with server APIs. I want to give the developer an option to use another third party library within mine. However, I don’t want my library to depend on the other library.

Possible Solution :

Add a system that does two things. 1) Checks for a library and if found imports it into file. 2) Checks if library is imported and allows source kit to parse conditional scope.

@importable ThirdPartyLibrary // would check if library is added to project and import it

if #imported(ThirdPartyLibrary) {
    
    // would check if library is imported before source kit parses scope
    
    // if library is not imported
    // scope would remain unparsed
    // scope could be removed as if it were a comment
    
}

Thanks.

Designer . Developer .  Nerd 
Jo Albright


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