Swig

Swig is a term with multiple meanings. As a noun, a swig is a large gulp of liquid taken in a single swallow, often from a bottle or can. The verb form to swig means to drink in such a gulp. This usage is informal and commonly appears in descriptions of drinking behavior.

In computing, SWIG stands for Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator. It is an open-source tool used to connect programs written in C or C++ with higher-level programming languages. SWIG reads interface files that declare the C/C++ functions, classes, and types to be exposed, and it generates wrapper code in the target language that calls into the C/C++ library. The wrapper code is then compiled with the original library to produce a module that can be loaded by the target language at runtime.

SWIG supports a broad range of target languages, including Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, PHP, Tcl, R, Lua, Go, and C#. It can handle functions, classes, and exceptions, and uses typemaps to customize how C/C++ types map to language types. While SWIG is a powerful bridge tool, it has limitations with complex C++ templates and some advanced language features, and projects often require careful management of memory ownership and object lifetimes.

Typical workflow involves writing an interface file, running SWIG to generate wrapper sources, compiling these with the library into a shared module, and importing the module in the target language. The project home is swig.org, which provides documentation and resources for users.