Crate icrate

Bindings to Apple’s frameworks

icrate is an autogenerated interface to Apple’s Objective-C frameworks like AppKit, Foundation, Metal, WebKit, and so on.

The bindings currently contain very little documentation, you should view Apple’s developer documentation for detailed information about each API. (There are plans for importing that documentation here).

Use of Deref

icrate uses the Deref trait in a bit special way: All objects deref to their superclasses. For example, NSMutableArray derefs to NSArray, which in turn derefs to NSObject.

Note that this is explicitly recommended against in the documentation and the Rust Design patterns book (see those links for details).

Due to Objective-C objects only ever being accessible behind pointers in the first place, the problems stated there are less severe, and having the implementation just means that everything is much nicer when you actually want to use the objects!

All objects also implement AsRef and AsMut to their superclass, and can be used in Id::into_super, so if you favour explicit conversion, that is a possibility too.

Rust vs. Objective-C types

A quick overview of some types you will encounter often in Objective-C, and their approximate Rust equivalent.

Objective-C	(approximately) equivalent Rust
NSData*	Arc<[u8]>
NSMutableData*	Vec<u8>
NSString*	Arc<str>
NSMutableString*	String
NSValue*	Arc<dyn Any>
NSNumber*	Arc<enum { I8(i8), U8(u8), I16(i16), U16(u16), I32(i32), U32(u32), I64(i64), U64(u64), F32(f32), F64(f64), CLong(ffi::c_long), CULong(ffi::c_ulong) }>
NSError*	Arc<dyn Error + Send + Sync>
NSException*	Arc<dyn Error + Send + Sync>
NSRange	ops::Range<usize>
NSComparisonResult	cmp::Ordering
NSArray<T>*	Arc<[T]>
NSMutableArray<T>*	Vec<T>
NSDictionary<K, V>*	Arc<HashMap<K, V>>
NSMutableDictionary<K, V>*	HashMap<K, V>
NSEnumerator<T>*	Box<dyn Iterator<T>>
NSCopying*	Box<dyn Clone>

Example

$ cargo add icrate --features=Foundation,Foundation_all

use icrate::Foundation::{ns_string, NSCopying, NSArray};

let string = ns_string!("world");
println!("hello {string}");

let array = NSArray::from_id_slice(&[string.copy()]);
println!("{array:?}");

Re-exports

pub extern crate block2;

pub extern crate objc2;

Modules

AccessibilityDeprecatedAccessibility

Bindings to the Accessibility framework

AdServicesDeprecatedAdServices

Bindings to the AdServices framework

AdSupportDeprecatedAdSupport

Bindings to the AdSupport framework

AppKitDeprecatedAppKit

Bindings to the AppKit framework

AuthenticationServicesDeprecatedAuthenticationServices

Bindings to the AuthenticationServices framework

AutomaticAssessmentConfigurationDeprecatedAutomaticAssessmentConfiguration

Bindings to the AutomaticAssessmentConfiguration framework

AutomatorDeprecatedAutomator

Bindings to the Automator framework

BackgroundAssetsDeprecatedBackgroundAssets

Bindings to the BackgroundAssets framework

BusinessChatDeprecatedBusinessChat

Bindings to the BusinessChat framework

CallKitDeprecatedCallKit

Bindings to the CallKit framework

ClassKitDeprecatedClassKit

Bindings to the ClassKit framework

CloudKitDeprecatedCloudKit

Bindings to the CloudKit framework

ContactsDeprecatedContacts

Bindings to the Contacts framework

CoreDataDeprecatedCoreData

Bindings to the CoreData framework

CoreLocationDeprecatedCoreLocation

Bindings to the CoreLocation framework

CoreWLANDeprecatedCoreWLAN

Bindings to the CoreWLAN framework

DataDetectionDeprecatedDataDetection

Bindings to the DataDetection framework

DeviceCheckDeprecatedDeviceCheck

Bindings to the DeviceCheck framework

EventKitDeprecatedEventKit

Bindings to the EventKit framework

ExceptionHandlingDeprecatedExceptionHandling

Bindings to the ExceptionHandling framework

ExtensionKitDeprecatedExtensionKit

Bindings to the ExtensionKit framework

ExternalAccessoryDeprecatedExternalAccessory

Bindings to the ExternalAccessory framework

FileProviderDeprecatedFileProvider

Bindings to the FileProvider framework

FileProviderUIDeprecatedFileProviderUI

Bindings to the FileProviderUI framework

FoundationDeprecatedFoundation

Bindings to the Foundation framework

GameControllerDeprecatedGameController

Bindings to the GameController framework

GameKitDeprecatedGameKit

Bindings to the GameKit framework

HealthKitDeprecatedHealthKit

Bindings to the HealthKit framework

IdentityLookupDeprecatedIdentityLookup

Bindings to the IdentityLookup framework

InputMethodKitDeprecatedInputMethodKit

Bindings to the InputMethodKit framework

LinkPresentationDeprecatedLinkPresentation

Bindings to the LinkPresentation framework

LocalAuthenticationDeprecatedLocalAuthentication

Bindings to the LocalAuthentication framework

LocalAuthenticationEmbeddedUIDeprecatedLocalAuthenticationEmbeddedUI

Bindings to the LocalAuthenticationEmbeddedUI framework

MailKitDeprecatedMailKit

Bindings to the MailKit framework

MapKitDeprecatedMapKit

Bindings to the MapKit framework

MediaPlayerDeprecatedMediaPlayer

Bindings to the MediaPlayer framework

MetalDeprecatedMetal

Bindings to the Metal framework

MetalFXDeprecatedMetalFX

Bindings to the MetalFX framework

MetalKitDeprecatedMetalKit

Bindings to the MetalKit framework

MetricKitDeprecatedMetricKit

Bindings to the MetricKit framework

OSAKitDeprecatedOSAKit

Bindings to the OSAKit framework

SoundAnalysisDeprecatedSoundAnalysis

Bindings to the SoundAnalysis framework

SpeechDeprecatedSpeech

Bindings to the Speech framework

StoreKitDeprecatedStoreKit

Bindings to the StoreKit framework

UniformTypeIdentifiersDeprecatedUniformTypeIdentifiers

Bindings to the UniformTypeIdentifiers framework

UserNotificationsDeprecatedUserNotifications

Bindings to the UserNotifications framework

WebKitDeprecatedWebKit

Bindings to the WebKit framework

Macros

ns_stringDeprecatedFoundation_NSString

Deprecated alias of Foundation::ns_string.