Question 1

How to install SourceKitten on Linux?

Accepted Answer

On Linux, SourceKitten expects SourceKit at /usr/lib/libsourcekitdInProc.so or set via LINUX_SOURCEKIT_LIB_PATH environment variable. Install via Swift Package Manager, but ensure SourceKit is available, which can be tricky without proper Swift toolchain setup.

Question 2

SourceKitten vs SwiftSyntax for code analysis?

Accepted Answer

SourceKitten uses SourceKit for deep, accurate AST parsing but requires Xcode, while SwiftSyntax is a pure Swift parser with no external dependencies, better for cross-platform use but may have different accuracy or feature sets.

Question 3

How to generate documentation with SourceKitten?

Accepted Answer

Use the 'doc' subcommand, e.g., 'sourcekitten doc -- -workspace MyProject.xcworkspace -scheme MyScheme'. It extracts comments and outputs JSON that can be processed by tools like Jazzy for Markdown or HTML documentation.

Question 4

Does SourceKitten work with Objective-C?

Accepted Answer

Yes, for basic documentation extraction via the --objc flag, but the framework API is Swift-only, and features like AST parsing are primarily focused on Swift, with limited Objective-C support.

Question 5

How to parse AST with SourceKitten programmatically?

Accepted Answer

Use the SourceKittenFramework API in Swift code to access structure or syntax data, or run command-line tools like 'sourcekitten structure --file file.swift' and parse the JSON output for integration into custom tools.

Question 6

SourceKitten error: SourceKit not found – how to fix?

Accepted Answer

Check if Xcode is installed and set environment variables like XCODE_DEFAULT_TOOLCHAIN_OVERRIDE, or use xcrun. On Linux, verify the libsourcekitdInProc.so path or set LINUX_SOURCEKIT_LIB_PATH, as detailed in the README's SourceKit resolution section.

SourceKitten

What is SourceKitten?

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