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GRPC

gRPC for Swift.

grpc-swift is a Swift package that contains a gRPC Swift API and code generator.

It is intended for use with Apple's SwiftProtobuf support for Protocol Buffers. Both projects contain code generation plugins for protoc, Google's Protocol Buffer compiler, and both contain libraries of supporting code that is needed to build and run the generated code.

APIs and generated code is provided for both gRPC clients and servers, and can be built either with Xcode or the Swift Package Manager. Support is provided for all four gRPC API styles (Unary, Server Streaming, Client Streaming, and Bidirectional Streaming) and connections can be made either over secure (TLS) or insecure channels.

Supported Platforms

gRPC Swift's platform support is identical to the platform support of Swift NIO.

The earliest supported version of Swift for gRPC Swift releases are as follows:

gRPC Swift Version Earliest Swift Version
1.0.0 ..< 1.8.0 5.2
1.8.0 ..< 1.11.0 5.4
1.11.0..< 1.16.0. 5.5
1.16.0..< 1.20.0 5.6
1.20.0..< 1.22.0 5.7
1.22.0..< 1.24.0 5.8
1.24.0... 5.9

Versions of clients and services which are use Swift's Concurrency support are available from gRPC Swift 1.8.0 and require Swift 5.6 and newer.

Getting gRPC Swift

There are two parts to gRPC Swift: the gRPC library and an API code generator.

Getting the gRPC library

The Swift Package Manager is the preferred way to get gRPC Swift. Simply add the package dependency to your Package.swift:

dependencies: [
  .package(url: "https://github.com/grpc/grpc-swift.git", from: "1.15.0")
]

...and depend on "GRPC" in the necessary targets:

.target(
  name: ...,
  dependencies: [.product(name: "GRPC", package: "grpc-swift")]
]

Getting the protoc Plugins

Binary releases of protoc, the Protocol Buffer Compiler, are available on GitHub.

To build the plugins, run the following in the main directory:

$ swift build --product protoc-gen-swift
$ swift build --product protoc-gen-grpc-swift

This uses the Swift Package Manager to build both of the necessary plugins: protoc-gen-swift, which generates Protocol Buffer support code and protoc-gen-grpc-swift, which generates gRPC interface code.

To install these plugins, just copy the two executables (protoc-gen-swift and protoc-gen-grpc-swift) that show up in the main directory into a directory that is part of your PATH environment variable. Alternatively the full path to the plugins can be specified when using protoc.

Homebrew

The plugins are available from homebrew and can be installed with:

    $ brew install swift-protobuf grpc-swift

Examples

gRPC Swift has a number of tutorials and examples available. The Examples/v1 directory contains examples which do not require additional dependencies and may be built using the Swift Package Manager.

Some of the examples are accompanied by tutorials, including:

  • A quick start guide for creating and running your first gRPC service.
  • A basic tutorial covering the creation and implementation of a gRPC service using all four call types as well as the code required to setup and run a server and make calls to it using a generated client.
  • An interceptors tutorial covering how to create and use interceptors with gRPC Swift.

Additional documentation