swift-referencing

swift-referencing is a lightweight library that provides a Referenced property wrapper for encapsulating a value as a reference type in Swift.

Usage

To use Referencing module in your project, you can simply add it as a dependency in your Package.swift file:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/minacle/swift-referencing", from: "1.0.0"),
],
targets: [
    .target(
        name: "MyTarget",
        dependencies: [
            .product(name: "Referencing", package: "swift-referencing"),
        ]
    ),
]

After adding the dependency, you can import the Referencing module in your Swift code:

import Referencing

Then you can use the @Referenced attribute to mark any property as a referenced type.

@Referenced var value: Int = 42

You can then read and write the value as if it were a regular property:

print(value) // Output: 42
value = 23
print(value) // Output: 23

Referenced is thread-safe by default, meaning that you can safely use it from multiple threads without causing data races. To achieve this, Referenced internally uses a read-write lock to synchronize access to its value.

If your app targets Apple platforms, Referenced works with Combine to provide notifications when the value changes. For example, you can use objectWillChange publisher to trigger updates in SwiftUI views when the value changes.

License

swift-referencing is released under the Unlicense.