How to get the lsp to find types in other local files?

[realh]

I'm very new to Swift and Apple development, coming from a Linux background. I'm trying to write a simple game for a Mac, on a Mac, but I'd rather use VS Code than Xcode so I don't have to waste hours resigning the whole IDE after every update to make the vim plugin work.

So far I've only written 2 very short swift files for my project, but this seems to already be too complicated for sourcekit-lsp to deal with. I have a protocol in one file (TextureManager) and a class that implements it (AppleTextureManager) in another file. This causes an error in VS Code: cannot find type 'TextureManager' in scope (followed by sourcekitd in a paler font). The two files are in separate xcode groups/folders, but even when I tried moving one of them so they're both in the same folder the error won't go away.

What do I have to do to make this plugin work with multiple source files?

[vknabel]

Hi @realh! Thanks for reaching out!

sourcekit-lsp requires a Swift Package Manager project to work correctly. This blog post on theswiftdev.com seems to fit your case perfectly! Migrating your project to Swift Package Manager (SwiftPM or SPM) is the easiest way and I really recommend using it. Plus: you can use SPM to write command line tools and servers, that also support Linux.

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In case you need some additional resources, I wrote two blog posts, which might help you later: Debugging Swift in VS Code and Swift VS Code and you. But you can take one step at a time.

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If you explicitly don't want to use SPM, you have to use the more flexible sourcekite. It is much harder to configure and I don't recommend beginners to use it.

Here you'd have multiple options:

• it supports SPM projects, too
• By default it puts all Swift files into one target (if they have none)
• The swift.targets setting allows defining compilerArguments for specific groups of swift files. Pretty low level.

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Hopefully I could help you, get a good start!

[realh]

Yes, this is very helpful, thanks. I also got a reply in the Swift forums, but they didn't go the extra mile and show how I can build a Mac app with SPM. However, I've decided to just put up with resigning Xcode for now, because the extra hand-holding should be helpful for a newbie to Apple like me. My aim is make a portable game, going as native as possible/practical on each platform; so SpriteKit for Apple, because it's the easiest way to use Metal for 2D, and I can easily write a fake version for other platforms, implemented in OpenGL (ES). So once I've got the basics up and running on the Mac I should easily be able to do the bulk of the development on Linux in case I get fed up with Xcode.

[vknabel]

Of course, Xcode helps a lot. Especially the visual editors are great for beginners to discover what’s possible!