SWAN: A static analysis framework for swift

Abstract

Swift is an open-source programming language and Apple's recommended choice for app development. Given the global widespread use of Apple devices, the ability to analyze Swift programs has significant impact on millions of users. Although static analysis frameworks exist for various computing platforms, there is a lack of comparable tools for Swift. While LLVM and Clang support some analyses for Swift, they are either primarily dynamic analyses or not suitable for deeper analyses of Swift programs such as taint tracking. Moreover, other existing tools for Swift only help enforce code styles and best practices. In this paper, we present SWAN, an open-source framework that allows robust program analyses of Swift programs using IBM's T.J. Watson Libraries for Analysis (WALA). To provide a wide range of analyses for Swift, SWAN leverages the well-established libraries in WALA. SWAN is publicly available at https://github.com/themaplelab/swan. We have also made a screencast available at https://youtu.be/AZwfhOGqwFs.