raylib-swift

raylib for Swift, kept current by automation.

raylib is vendored as source and built by SwiftPM, so there's nothing to install besides the system headers below. The whole C API comes through unchanged, along with raymath and rlgl. On top of it, a generated Swift layer adds what Swift can't import from raylib's header on its own:

raylib (C)	Swift
KEY_SPACE, MOUSE_BUTTON_LEFT	KeyboardKey.space, MouseButton.left
FLAG_VSYNC_HINT | FLAG_MSAA_4X_HINT	[.vsyncHint, .msaa4xHint] (an OptionSet)
RAYWHITE, LIGHTGRAY (compound-literal macros)	Color.rayWhite, Color.lightGray
IsKeyDown(KEY_SPACE) (takes an int)	IsKeyDown(.space)
DrawText(text, x, y, 20, color) (C int, imported as Int32)	the same call with Int values; MeasureText returns Int
Vector2Add(a, Vector2Scale(b, 2))	a + b * 2, plus Vector2.zero and .one, and the same for Vector3

Function names stay raylib's, so raylib's examples and cheatsheet read the same in Swift.

Int arguments are clamped to Int32's range rather than trapping. A function whose only int is its result, such as GetScreenWidth(), still returns Int32: an overload that differed only in its result type would make let width = GetScreenWidth() ambiguous. Wrap it as Int(GetScreenWidth()) where you need an Int.

import Raylib

SetConfigFlags([.vsyncHint, .windowResizable])
InitWindow(800, 450, "raylib-swift - basic window")
SetTargetFPS(60)

while !WindowShouldClose() {
    BeginDrawing()
    ClearBackground(.rayWhite)
    DrawText("Congrats! You created your first window!", 190, 200, 20, .lightGray)
    EndDrawing()
}

CloseWindow()

The vendored raylib version is in RAYLIB_VERSION.

Using it

// Package.swift
dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/tonytins/raylib-swift", branch: "main"),
],
targets: [
    .executableTarget(name: "MyGame", dependencies: [
        .product(name: "Raylib", package: "raylib-swift"),
    ]),
]

Run the example with swift run basic-window.

Requirements

Swift 6.0 or later, and on Linux the X11 and GL development headers. raylib loads OpenGL and audio at run time, so nothing else needs to be installed.

System	Install
Debian, Ubuntu	sudo apt install libx11-dev libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxext-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
Fedora	sudo dnf install libX11-devel libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel libXcursor-devel libXi-devel libXext-devel mesa-libGL-devel
Fedora Atomic (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora)	Build in a Distrobox with the Fedora or Ubuntu packages above, or use Homebrew's (below)
macOS	Nothing; the frameworks ship with the OS

With Homebrew on Linux (brew install libx11 libxrandr libxinerama libxcursor libxi mesa xorgproto), point the compiler at its headers. xorgproto isn't linked into Homebrew's prefix, so it needs its own entry:

export CPATH="$(brew --prefix)/include:$(brew --prefix xorgproto)/include"
export LIBRARY_PATH="$(brew --prefix)/lib"

The built program loads the system's libX11.so.6 at run time, not Homebrew's.

How it's kept current

Nothing in Sources/Raylib/Generated/ or Sources/CRaylib/include/CRaylib.apinotes is written by hand. raylib-swift-gen reads the vendored raylib.h and writes them:

• CRaylib.apinotes tells Swift's importer to bring each raylib enum in as a Swift enum (or, for ConfigFlags and Gesture, an option set) and gives every case a camel-case name: KEY_LEFT_SHIFT becomes leftShift. Enums are imported open, so a value raylib adds later can't trap a switch.
• Colors.swift holds raylib's color macros as Color constants.
• Overloads.swift has an overload of each function that takes an int, taking Int instead, or the Swift enum or option set for the parameters in the generator's table (Output.typedParameters). An int result comes back as Int.

The generator reads raylib.h directly instead of raylib's raylib_api.json, which isn't valid JSON in raylib 6.0. When the header changes in a way it doesn't expect (a function in its table is renamed, say), it stops with an error and writes nothing.

To update by hand:

scripts/update-raylib.sh 6.2      # or no argument for the latest release
swift build && swift test

Automation

• CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) builds and tests on Linux and macOS for every push and pull request. One test checks that the generated files match the vendored header.
• Update (.github/workflows/update.yml) runs once a quarter, on January, April, July, and October 1. It picks the newest raylib release that's at least 14 days old, vendors it, regenerates, builds, and tests, and opens a pull request only if all of that passes.

For the update workflow to work, enable Settings → Actions → General → Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests. GitHub doesn't run CI on pull requests opened with the default token, so to get the macOS check on update PRs, add a fine-grained personal access token (contents and pull requests: read and write) as the RAYLIB_UPDATE_TOKEN secret.

Known limitations

• Linux uses X11. It runs on Wayland desktops through XWayland. GLFW's native Wayland backend needs generated protocol headers and isn't enabled.
• Windows is untested. Package.swift links the libraries raylib's Makefile uses on Windows, but no build has run there and CI doesn't cover it.
• Stale enums after an update. Clang's module cache doesn't track .apinotes files. If the Swift enums look wrong after regenerating, run swift package clean.
• One warning from raylib's bundled stb_vorbis.c shows when building this package itself. It's upstream code, and SwiftPM hides it when this package is a remote dependency.

License

zlib, the same as raylib. See LICENSE. raylib's own license is in Sources/CRaylib/raylib/LICENSE.