CocoaAsyncSocket

GCDAsyncSocket is a TCP/IP socket networking library built on top of Grand Central Dispatch (GCD). It is designed to be fully self-contained and thread-safe, running entirely within its own GCD dispatch queue.

Key capabilities include:

• Full Delegate Support: Receives callbacks for errors, connections, read/write completions, progress, and disconnections.
• Non-blocking I/O: Supports queued non-blocking reads and writes with optional timeouts, including automatic buffering and termination sequence searching.
• Automatic Server Management: Automatically accepts incoming connections and provides new instances of the socket for each connection.
• IPv4/IPv6 Support: Automatically handles both protocols.
• Security: Supports TLS/SSL for both client and server sockets via a single method call.

GCDAsyncUdpSocket is a UDP/IP socket networking library built on top of Grand Central Dispatch (GCD). It is fully thread-safe and runs within its own dispatch queue.

Key capabilities include:

• Full Delegate Support: Receives callbacks for errors, send/receive completions, and disconnections.
• Non-blocking I/O: Supports queued non-blocking send and receive operations with optional timeouts, handling buffering and errno automatically.
• IPv4/IPv6 Support: Automatically handles both protocols for sending and receiving.

By default, CocoaAsyncSocket uses the primary network interface (WiFi on iPhone, or the system-configured primary interface on Mac).

• Server sockets (listening/accepting) will accept incoming connections on any available interface.
• Client sockets (connecting) will attempt outgoing connections on the primary interface.

You can override this behavior to force a connection through a specific interface, such as WiFi, Cellular (3G), Bluetooth, or Loopback. This is useful for:

• Ensuring a connection only uses WiFi (e.g., to save cellular data).
• Making Bluetooth connections.
• Creating local-only server sockets on Mac for inter-process communication (using the Loopback interface).

Depending on your language and whether you are using Clang Modules, use the following import statements:

Swift

import CocoaAsyncSocket

Objective-C (with Clang Modules)

@import CocoaAsyncSocket;

Objective-C (without Clang Modules)

#import "GCDAsyncSocket.h" // for TCP
#import "GCDAsyncUdpSocket.h" // for UDP

Add the package dependency to your Package.swift and depend on "CocoaAsyncSocket" in your necessary targets.

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/robbiehanson/CocoaAsyncSocket", from: "7.6.4")
]

To include CocoaAsyncSocket in your project using Carthage, add the following line to your Cartfile:

github "robbiehanson/CocoaAsyncSocket" "master"

After building, the frameworks are located at:

• Carthage/Build/iOS/CocoaAsyncSocket.framework
• Carthage/Build/tvOS/CocoaAsyncSocket.framework
• Carthage/Build/Mac/CocoaAsyncSocket.framework

Drag the appropriate framework into your project.

To install CocoaAsyncSocket using CocoaPods, add the following line to your Podfile. If you are targeting iOS 8+ or using Swift, ensure you also include use_frameworks!.

use_frameworks! # Add this if you are targeting iOS 8+ or using Swift
pod 'CocoaAsyncSocket'  

The ConnectTest project provides demonstration code for various connection scenarios using CocoaAsyncSocket. Use these examples to understand how to implement:

• Connect timeouts: Configuring how long the socket should attempt to connect before failing.
• Secure connections: Connecting to hosts using SSL/TLS protocols.