Methods to create a Swift bundle assortment?

What’s a Swift bundle assortment?

A Swift bundle assortment is a curated record of packages. Swift Package deal Supervisor customers can subscribe to those collections, this fashion they’re going to have the ability to search libraries and uncover new ones. A set isn’t equal with a bundle index or registry service, however normally means a smaller (by some means associated) group of Swift packages.

For instance in the event you check out the Swift Package deal Index web site, it is all about discovering new Swift packages, however every creator can have its personal assortment, so if we go to the Vapor web page, there you may see the URL of the Swift bundle assortment hyperlink. This assortment solely comprises these packages which can be authored by Vapor. It is only a small, curated subset of your entire content material of the Swift Package deal Index web site.

So we are able to say {that a} bundle registry service is concentrated on internet hosting and serving bundle sources, a bundle index service is all about discovering and looking packages and a bundle assortment is normally a smaller curated record that may be simply shared with others. It may be a listing of your most popular Swift dependencies that your organization makes use of for constructing new initiatives. 💡

Getting ready the surroundings

With a purpose to create a bundle assortment, you may have to put in a software referred to as Swift bundle assortment generator. It was created by Apple and it was launched on this WWDC session in 2021.

You may set up the bundle assortment generator by operating these instructions:

git clone https://github.com/apple/swift-package-collection-generator
cd swift-package-collection-generator 
swift construct --configuration launch

sudo set up .construct/launch/package-collection-generate /usr/native/bin/package-collection-generate
sudo set up .construct/launch/package-collection-diff /usr/native/bin/package-collection-diff
sudo set up .construct/launch/package-collection-sign /usr/native/bin/package-collection-sign
sudo set up .construct/launch/package-collection-validate /usr/native/bin/package-collection-validate

You will additionally want a certificates and a key in an effort to signal a bundle assortment. Signing packages are usually not required, however it’s endorsed. The signature could be added with the package-collection-sign command, however to start with you may want a developer certificates from the Apple developer portal. 🔨

Earlier than you go to the dev portal, merely launch the Keychain Entry app and use the Keychain Entry > Certificates Assitant > Request a Certificates from a Certificates Authority menu merchandise to generate a brand new CertificateSigningRequest.certSigningRequest file. Double examine your e mail handle and choose the Saved to disk possibility and press the Proceed button to generate the file.

Now you should utilize the CSR file to generate a brand new certificates utilizing the Apple dev portal. Press the plus icon subsequent to the Certificates textual content and scroll all the way down to the Providers part, there it is best to see a Swift Package deal Assortment Certificates possibility, choose that one and press the Proceed button. Add your CSR file and press Proceed once more, now it is best to be capable of obtain the certificates that can be utilized to correctly signal your Swift bundle collections. 🖊

We nonetheless need to export the personal key that is behind the certificates and we additionally need to convert it to the appropriate format earlier than we are able to begin coping with the contents of the bundle assortment itself. Double click on the downloaded certificates file, this can add it to your keychain. Discover the certificates (click on My Certificates on the highest), proper click on on it and select the Export menu merchandise, save the Certificates.p12 file someplace in your disk. Do not forget so as to add password safety to the exported file, in any other case the important thing extraction will not work.

Now we must always use the openssl to extract the personal key from the p12 file utilizing an RSA format.

openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -in Certificates.p12 -out key.pem && openssl rsa -in key.pem -out rsa_key.pem

Run the command and enter the password that you have used to export the p12 file. This command ought to extract the required key utilizing the correct format for the bundle assortment signal command. You will want each the downloaded certificates and the RSA key file through the bundle creation. 📦

Constructing a Swift bundle assortment

It’s time to create a model new Swift bundle assortment. I’ll construct one for my Swift repositories situated below the Binary Birds group. Every part begins with a JSON file.

{
    "identify": "Binary Birds packages",
    "overview": "This assortment comprises the our favourite Swift packages.",
    "creator": {
        "identify": "Tibor Bödecs"
    },
    "key phrases": [
        "favorite"
    ],
    "packages": [
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/binarybirds/swift-html"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/BinaryBirds/liquid"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/BinaryBirds/liquid-kit"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/BinaryBirds/liquid-local-driver"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/BinaryBirds/liquid-aws-s3-driver"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://github.com/BinaryBirds/spec"
        }
    ]
}

You may learn extra concerning the Package deal Assortment format file on GitHub, however if you wish to stick to the fundamentals, it’s just about self-explanatory. You can provide a reputation and a brief overview description to your assortment, set the creator, add some associated key phrases to enhance the search expertise and eventually outline the included packages by way of URLs.

Save this file utilizing the enter.json identify. When you run the generate command with this enter file it’s going to attempt to fetch the repositories listed contained in the JSON file. With a purpose to get extra metadata details about the GitHub repositories you may also present an -auth-token parameter along with your private entry token, you may learn extra concerning the accessible choices by operating the command with the -h or --help flag (package-collection-generate -h).

package-collection-generate enter.json ./output.json

The generated output file will comprise the required bundle assortment metadata, however we nonetheless need to signal the output file if we need to correctly use it as a set file. After all the signal step is elective, however it’s suggest to work with signed collections. 😇

package-collection-sign output.json assortment.json rsa_key.pem swift_package.cer

Lastly it is best to add your assortment.json file to a public internet hosting service. For instance I’ve created a easy SPM repository below my group and I can use the uncooked file URL of the gathering JSON file to make use of it with SPM or Xcode.

When you favor the command line you’ve a number of choices to govern Swift Package deal Collections. For more information you may learn the associated Swift Package deal Supervisor documentation, however listed below are some instance instructions that you should utilize so as to add, record, refresh search or take away a set:

swift package-collection record
swift package-collection add https://uncooked.githubusercontent.com/BinaryBirds/SPM/essential/assortment.json
swift package-collection refresh
swift package-collection search --keywords html

swift package-collection take away https://uncooked.githubusercontent.com/BinaryBirds/SPM/essential/assortment.json

In case you are growing apps utilizing Xcode, you should utilize the Package deal Dependencies menu below your undertaking settings to handle your bundle dependencies and use bundle collections.

Swift Package deal Collections are nice if you wish to set up your Swift libraries and also you need to share them with others. In case you are a heavy Xcode person you may take pleasure in utilizing collections for positive. ☺️