Definition of Swift Version
Swift is a programming language that is extensively used for writing API’s and code that is understandable by macOS, watchOS, iOS, and beyond. Swift Programming language plays a pivotal role in Apple devices and with every latest update in the mentioned devices, the Swift version for language also gets improvised. Swift Programming language with other modern features like security, interactivity, flexibility, and fun comes with different versions of Swift. Swift code in each version brings in very nice, fun, interactive, and very safe designing thus any software with different swift versions is quite fast.
Top Swift Versions
There are many versions of Swift which aids in making some of the user-friendly experience fun and interactive. A different version of Swift brings in different features and adaptability for apple platforms including interactivity, security, and fun. Memory is also maintained and managed automatically using deterministic reference and counts. There are many swift versions which are as follows :
Swift 1.2 (Xcode 6.3+, swiftlang-602.0.49.6)
Swift 1.2 is part of Xcode 6.3 beta which includes an enhanced version of swift compiler with many new features of swift languages. It mainly focuses on compiler improvement and enhancement like stability and performance improvement which in turn provides a better experience for working with Swift in Xcode. Compiler improvement includes Stability enhancement, Better compiler diagnostics, incremental builds, and faster executables. The language has involved lot many improved interactions with respect to Objective-C and Swift. Some major and prominent changes are :
- as! with failed casting: To make readers easily understand the code and maintain the code involves as! the operator which makes sure that casting gets failed at run time.
- @objc attribute used with the objective: C can get exported using enums in Swift.
- Nullability can be expressed using objective: C headers which Clang allows to express all the null pointers using Objective-C api.
Swift 2.1 (Xcode 7.2, swiftlang-700.1.101.19)
The migration of Swift 1.2 to a version of Swift 2.1 with Xcode 7.2 has added a lot many features and enhancement to the UI interactivity and adaptability which includes features like Generics, Nullability annotation, inline results, Resources, auxiliary and many more playgrounds. This Swift version helps in bundling all the features together and helps in app thinning in the sense lets programmers understand the usage of on demand resources, bit code with a compilation of down into 64 or 32 executables as necessary. Also helps in slicing with the artwork that gets incorporated into asset allocation.
Swift 2.2 (Xcode 7.3, swiftlang-703.0.18.1)
Swift 2.2. with Xcode 7.3 is mainly requires a mac which should run on OS X version 10.11 or later which involves many updated supports for iOS 9.3, watchOS 2.2, OS X version, and many feature enhancements in a row. The Swift 2.2 version with Xcode 7.3 is used for providing improved warnings and diagnosis with respect to compiler time, updated features, and interoperability with objective-C. It also provides a Code completion feature, Debugger, Analyzer, Navigator, alternative toolchains, etc.
Swift 3.0 (Xcode 8.2, swiftlang-800.0.63)
Swift 3.0 with Xcode 8.2 comes with a significant number of changes where the primary difference between swift 3 and swift 2.3 also exists which means that swift 3.0 language some what supports swift 2.3. and swift 3.0 both but still it is not binary compatible with the application’s entire codebase therefore it is needed to keep a version in which the features are not deprecated rather the features like debugging, API interactivity, security, and data privacy should be much more enhanced. Playgrounds in Xcode only works with Swift3 and make use of proper templates and documentation in a proper format.
Swift 3.1 (Xcode 8.3b2, swiftlang-802.0.31.3)
Swift 3.1 version with Xcode 8.3b2 brings in all new features supporting initial support for tvOS. It makes use of many other features which is necessary for making the swift language more robust and flexible in terms of OS related to tv, the codebase becomes clear and easily understandable by the programmers as it makes use of operators & <<= { associative_right precedence assignment }
Declarations of some functions with &<< = <T which somehow supports the enhancement and multi-tasking functionalities needed by the tvOS.
Swift 4.2 (Xcode 10.0b1, swiftlang-1000.0.16.7)
Xcode 4.2 supports and adds features that support iOS 5 as well as many other enhancements to the application take place with this Swift Version. It has a very interesting feature of automatic reference counting that includes a menu item that converts all targets to use automatic reference counting which in turn converts memory management for all Objective-C objects. Thus, making the entire version to be safe and lightning-fast with respect to memory management. It also makes use of many projects with a codebase that converts and enables users to use the Apple LLVM compiler. Xcode within this Swift version is used further for displaying a preview pane or dialog showing all changes containing the code to use ARC.
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The default compiler comes out to be for iOS development in Xcode using Xcode 4.2 with LLVM 3.0. When it is used for comparison then it is compiled with the GCC compiler with default Xcode 4.0 and LLVM-GCC compiler in Xcode 4.1 both the combination helps in generating better code generation and optimization in than GCC. There are many more features like location simulators, OpenGL ES Frame Capture, and many more.
Swift 5.1 (Xcode 11.3.1, swiftlang-1100.0.282.1)
Swift 5.1 with Xcode 11.3.1 is the latest release by apple used for swift programming as part of apple developer tools. Building on the design of Xcode 4 mainly focuses on features and improvements to improve the ability to adopt core functionality with new design user interfaces and subtle changes that incorporate Continuous integration with bots, testing, debugging, and usability.
Nightly build (swift/master, 1466a5e)
This is the latest swift version which is still under exploration and beta format which has some more enhanced and improvised features being used continuously with obvious improvement on top of the previous swift version.
Conclusion
There are lot many versions of Swift which exist according to different platforms of iOS, tvOS, and many more but still in discovery but indeed made apple platforms quite versatile and flexible. It has made all the products accessible and user friendly to both users and programmers with all its programming paradigms and robustness.
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This is a guide to Swift Version. Here we also discuss the definition and top swift versions along with a detailed explanation. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
