Identify if output goes to the terminal or is being redirected, in Golang May 16 2021

Good command-line tools are a pleasure to work with. A feature I'm always grateful for is when the developer took the time to provide an output that is human readable and an output that is easy to pass to another tool for additional processing. A neat...

Managing UTI and URL schemes via Launch Services' API from Swift Nov 27 2019

Apple provides the Launch Services API so we can interact with different applications from our current process. We can define URL schemes for our apps, and when that URL is opened, our app gets launched. We can also specify which application to open...

Making a C library available in Swift using the Swift Package Manager Nov 7 2019

System libraries are typically defined using C, that means we need a way to make them available to Swift. In this post, we are going to explore how to use the Swift Package Manager to give us access to C libraries, be it system or user-defined.

Let...

Multithreading with pthreads in Swift Oct 29 2019

Long gone are the days when single process single thread was the norm. We now take multithreading for granted, we expect all our applications not to lockup when we interact with them. We expect them to handle multiple users at the same time, etcetera...

Creating a Launch Agent that provides an XPC service on macOS using Swift Oct 21 2019

Last week we discussed how to build XPC Services(the .xpc bundles) inside your macOS applications. This week we are going to explore how to provide XPC services that can be used from other applications or tools.

To make the XPC service available to...

XPC Services on macOS apps using Swift Oct 17 2019

We have access to many Inter-Process-Communication(IPC) mechanisms in macOS. One of the newest is XPC¹. Before XPC a common way to use IPC, and provide services between processes, was through Sockets or Mach Messages (Using Mach Ports).

Nowadays,...

Using Kernel Queues (kqueue) notifications in Swift Oct 9 2019

Many components of macOS trace their roots back to BSD. One key aspect inherited from BSD is the Kernel Event Notification mechanism know as Kernel Queues (kqueues for short).

In the past, before kqueue(2)¹/ kevent(2)², when we wanted to track events...

Understanding the RunLoop model by creating a basic shell Oct 1 2019

When we find ourselves listening for events, reacting to those events, and then going back to listening for more events, we have ourselves an Event-Loop. Having an event-loop is a common scenario. So common that Apple decided to provide us with a model...

Using BSD Sockets in Swift Sep 24 2019

Apple provides many useful network frameworks. Network.framework (you can check my previous article on Network.framework if you want to see an example) is the latest. But sometimes we need to go deeper, and the abstractions might get in the way. In...

Understanding Objective-C and Swift interoperability Sep 16 2019

There are many reasons to use more than one programming language in a project. In some cases, a lot of work has gone into building a framework (years maybe). Rewriting the whole framework to have the codebase in the same programming language, might...

Building a server-client application using Apple's Network Framework Sep 10 2019

Apple's network APIs are many, the older APIs are well documented, and you'll find lots of examples. Not so much about the new Network framework. One factor might be that the name is not that search-friendly. In this post, I'll explain how to use the...

Using Xcode's visual debugger and Instruments' modules to prevent memory overuse Aug 27 2019

An essential step before you deliver your application to your users is to make sure that your app is not overusing your user's resources. In this post, I'll show how to use Xcode's visual debugger and the command-line counterparts to check for common...