What is build object file extension in iOS?

Question

When I build java object class in a project, build file will be created with .class extension and human unreadable; What about swift build files?

example:

Answer 1

In iOS world every sources file - .m, .h, .swift are compiled into executable byte code that is understandable by CPU. These files are also called Mach object - ABI Mach-O (.o)[About] file with a meta-information.

`*.swift` -> `*.o` (Mach-O object file).

For example if you created a static library - myLibrary.a. You can use nm[About] command to display name list (symbol table).

nm path/myLibrary.a

As a result you will see a list of *.o files with methods, variables names etc.

[Xcode build process]