Xamarin.iOS 11.10 Release Notes

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⚠️ Update to macOS High Sierra The most recent version of Xcode (9.3) requires macOS High Sierra (10.13). developers should update to macOS High Sierra as soon as possible in order to support the Xcode 9.3 SDKs and API.

Requirements

  • The latest features and API requires Xcode 9.3 and the bundled iOS, tvOS and watchOS SDKs
  • Apple Xcode 9.3 requires a Mac running macOS 10.13.2 (High-Sierra) or newer

What's New in this Release

Registrar Optimizations

This is a set of optimizations that makes the dynamic registrar removable by the linker (under most circumstances). This results in:

  • Smaller applications - The linked Xamarin.iOS.dll is between 30-50% smaller than before since the information (e.g. custom attributes) needed only at build time can now be removed. This also allows the linker to remove more code than before (since less code is being referenced);
  • Faster application startup - More registration work is being done at build time instead of at runtime. E.g. this removes the need to use (slow) reflection on custom attributes to register types and methods;
  • Reduced memory usage - The avoided work also reduces the memory required for applications. Initial (startup) memory requirement is down 30% for a minimal application and 20% for extensions. This makes it easier to create some type of extensions where iOS imposes memory limits (e.g. 16MB for Today extensions).

Xamarin.Analysis: Use LLVM rule

We added a new rule to our project analysis tool which recommends enabling the LLVM compiler for Release|iPhone configuration. LLVM generates code that is faster to execute at the expense of build time.

As a reminder to run the rules, in Visual Studio for Mac's menu, select Project > Run Code Analysis.

Note: all existing rules are documented here.

WeakAttribute

WeakAttribute can be used to decorate reference type fields in a class. Like WeakReference <T>, WeakAttribute will help you break strong circular references, but with with even less code.

Consider the following code, which uses WeakReference <T>:

public class MyFooDelegate : FooDelegate {

	WeakReference<MyViewController> container;

	public MyFooDelegate (MyViewController ctrl) => container = new WeakReference<MyViewController> (ctrl);

	public void CallDoSomething ()
	{
		MyViewController controller;
		if (container.TryGetTarget (out controller)) {
			controller.DoSomething ();
		}
	}
}

Equivalent code using WeakAttribute is far more concise:

public class MyFooDelegate : FooDelegate {
	[Weak] MyViewController controller;

	public MyFooDelegate (MyViewController ctrl) => controller = ctrl;
	public void CallDoSomething () => controller.DoSomething ();
}

Notice that in this case it is not necessary to implement a null check before calling controller.DoSomething ();. This is because of the the context of the call; since MyFooDelegate participates in Apple's delegation pattern as a delegate for controller, it should only exist as long as controller does.

The following code snippet demonstrates more of a real-world example of using WeakAttribute in context of the delegation pattern:

public class MyViewController : UIViewController {
	protected MyViewController (IntPtr handle) : base (handle) { }

	WKWebView webView;
	public override void ViewDidLoad ()
	{
		base.ViewDidLoad ();
		webView = new WKWebView (View.Bounds, new WKWebViewConfiguration ());
		webView.UIDelegate = new UIDelegate (this);
		View.AddSubview (webView);
	}
}

public class UIDelegate : WKUIDelegate {

	[Weak] MyViewController controller;

	public UIDelegate (MyViewController ctrl) => controller = ctrl;
	public override void RunJavaScriptAlertPanel (WKWebView webView, string message, WKFrameInfo frame, Action completionHandler)
	{
		var msg = $"Hello from: {controller.Title}";
		var alertController = UIAlertController.Create (null, msg, UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert);
		alertController.AddAction (UIAlertAction.Create ("Ok", UIAlertActionStyle.Default, null));
		controller.PresentViewController (alertController, true, null);
		completionHandler ();
	}
}

API Enhancements

  • 3127 - [watchos][accelerate] Enable Accelerate framework on watchOS
  • 3247 - [generator] Add support for [DesignatedDefaultCtorAttribute] as a type-level attribute
  • 3392 - [scenekit] Adds [NullAllowed] to ISCNSceneRenderer.OverlayScene
  • 34135 - [security] Add new SecKey.GenerateKeyPair overloads
  • 40520 - [uikit] Add [Advice] on UIImage.FromBundle to mention it was not thread safe before iOS9
  • 41292 - [foundation] Add NSBundle.GetLocalizedString returning an NSString
  • 59294 - [coreimage] Enable ImageRepresentation strong dictionary helpers
  • 60740 - [foundation] Add NSDateComponentUndefined constant

Tooling Enhancements

  • 3200 - [mtouch][mmp] Warn for invalid debug symbols files (e.g. out of sync)
  • 56501 - [mtouch][mmp][bgen] Add support for response files
  • 57531 - [generator] Support the use of [Async] attributes inside [Category]-decorated types
  • 57870 - [generator] Teach generator about [WrapAttribute] on getters and setters
  • 58350 - [generator] Handle sharpie's [RequiresSuper] attribute

Release History

This version of Xamarin.iOS corresponds to our 15.7 (d15-7) milestone.

  • May 15, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.178
  • May 7, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.177
  • May 3, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.177
  • April 25, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.174
  • April 18, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.170
  • April 4, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.50
  • March 19, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.32
  • March 8, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.15

You can learn more about how we ship our releases in the Visual Studio 2017 Release Rhythm document.

May 15, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.178

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 service release 2.

Issues Fixed

  • 4033 - [mtouch] Take into account the contents of response files when determining whether the cache is valid or not

May 7, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.177

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 release.

May 3, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.177

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 6 release.

Issues Fixed

  • 7685 - [mono][watchos] Align cinfo->stack_usage to 16 bytes on watchOS
  • 8403 - [mono] Fix invalid IL when running .NET Standard 1.5 code
  • 58413 - [mono] Replace mono_msec_boottime() with CoreCLR implementation

April 25, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.174

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 5 release.

Issues Fixed

  • 3930 - [watchos] Fix MT4116 / NullReferenceException building a watchOS app extension including an extension

April 18, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.1.170

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 4 release.

Xcode 9.3 Support

This preview is the first, 15.7-based release, to support Xcode 9.3 and the bundled iOS (11.3), tvOS (11.3) and watchOS (4.3) SDKs. More information on Xcode 9.3 support can be found in the (15.6-based) Xamarin.iOS 11.9 release notes.

Issues Fixed

  • 3199 - [msbuild] Skip (nuget) reference assemblies passed to mtouch
  • 3742 - [foundation] Ensure we do raise 401 on NTLM when no credentials are present

API Enhancements

  • 3870 - [arkit] Add missing ARHitTestResultType binding

Tooling Enhancements

  • 3875 - [generator] Register models with unique names to not match platform types. Related to issue 3832

April 4, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.50

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 3 release.

Issues Fixed

  • 3653 - [mtouch] mono-symbolicate errors "Warning: MVID directory does not exist"
  • 7364 - [runtime] watchOS/LLVM crashes at launch on device in Release
  • 61054 - [Foundation] Ensure that we do not dispose the possibly shared data in the NSUrlSessionHandler
  • 3717 - [ObjCRuntime] Don't double-retain blocks
  • 7472 - [runtime] NullReferenceException when trying to use an extension method on a null object as an assignment value for an Action or Func variable

API Enhancements

  • 3732 - [Security] Adding new SecAccessControlCreateFlags

March 19, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.32

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 2 release.

Issues Fixed

  • Fixed generated profiling logs to be compatible with the Xamarin Profiler
  • PR3658 - [Registrar] Show warning instead of NRE when code almost implements optional protocols

API Enhancements

  • PR3502 - [Security] Strongly-typed key generation APIs

March 8, 2018 - Xamarin.iOS 11.10.0.15

This version is included in the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.7 Preview 1 release.

Issues Fixed

  • 3265 - [mtouch] Make sure the xamarin_localized_string_format* functions are available in simlauncher
  • 3372 - [linker] Mark all TypeConverter if TypeDescriptor is used
  • 60088 - [debugger] Fixed Assertion at ../../../../external/mono/mono/mini/debugger-agent.c:4765, condition array->len == 1` not met
  • 60771 - [aot] Fixed Attempting to JIT compile method 'System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe:Add (byte&,int)' while running in aot-only mode

Breaking Changes

  • PR3170: [metalperformanceshaders] Fix MPSImageLanczosScale base class. As part of the fix the MPSImageScale.ScaleTransform property changed to be a nullable value-type. The previous API did not work correctly so this should not affect applications being re-compiled.
  • 3832 - error MT4116: Could not register the assembly '*': error MT4118: Cannot register two managed types ('*, *' and '*, *') with the same native name ('*'). See below for more information.
  • 4065 - The 'isWrapper' argument to the [Register] attribute must be correct for models (causing 'error MT5211: Native linking failed, undefined Objective-C class ...' if not correct).

More information about #3832

When binding Objective-C protocols, a typical binding would additionally create a managed type whose name matched the Objective-C protocol. Xamarin.iOS would then try to create a corresponding Objective-C type for this managed type.

Unfortunately this leads to a undetermined behavior, because there might already be an existing Objective-C type with the same name, defined by Apple (or someone else). If two Objective-C types with the same name would be encountered at runtime, only one of them would be loaded and used everywhere. This would lead to random behavior, because the loaded type might not match the code: for instance the type defined by Xamarin.iOS could end up being used in Apple's code (or vice versa).

In this version of Xamarin.iOS we've changed how we create such Objective-C types: when using the static registrar they're created at build time. This means that the Objective-C runtime will detect any such duplicates, and issue a warning at launch, like this [1]:

Class MTLCaptureScope is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/Metal.framework/Versions/A/Metal (0x7fffa806f1d0) and /path/to/myapp (0x10d8aa858). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

An additional consequence is that we'll detect if there are multiple models with the same Objective-C name at build time, leading to the MT4116 build error.

One potential cause for this is if there are multiple binding projects binding the same protocol:

[Protocol, Model]
[BaseType (typeof (NSObject))]
interface MyProtocol {}

Which would result in:

error MT4116: Could not register the assembly 'MyBindingLibrary2': error MT4118: Cannot register two managed types ('MyProtocol, MyBindingLibrary1' and 'MyProtocol, MyBindingLibrary2') with the same native name ('MyProtocol')

In order to resolve this problem, we've implemented a way to specify the Objective-C names for models:

[Protocol, Model (AutoGeneratedName = true)]
[BaseType (typeof (NSObject))]
interface MyProtocol {}

This will auto-generate a unique name for the model (currently the name of the assembly + the full name of the type, but it may change in the future).

It's also possible to specify the Objective-C name explicitly:

[Protocol, Model (Name = "MyProtocol1")]
[BaseType (typeof (NSObject))]
interface MyProtocol {}

Implementing either of these solutions in one of the binding projects will fix the MT4116 error.

[1] All instances of these warnings (where one library mentioned in the warning is a system library, and another is the app) should have been fixed; if that's not the case, please file an issue.

Integrated Mono Features/Fixes

Xamarin.iOS uses a customized runtime and base class libraries (BCL) from Mono 5.10.

Additional information can be found in Mono release notes.

Known Issues

Using an older Xcode version

Using an older Xcode version (than the one mentioned in the above requirements) is often possible, but some features may not be available. Also some limitations might requires workarounds, e.g:

  • The static registrar requires Xcode headers files to build applications, leading to MT0091 or MT4109 errors if API are missing. In most cases enabling the managed linker will help (by removing the API).
  • Bitcode builds (for tvOS and watchOS) can fail submission to the App Store unless an Xcode 9.0+ toolchain is used.

Changing build options may not rebuild correctly

Due to a bug in our logic to determine whether build options changed, we're not always detecting when a full build is needed (as opposed to an incremental build).

This means that when changing build options in the executable project's project configuration, it might be necessary to clean the project before any changes take effect.

Note

This is only applicable to changes in the project itself; code changes are not affected and continue to trigger correct builds.

API Diff

The following documents contains a complete list of the API changes since the Xamarin.iOS 11.8 stable release:

Feedback welcome

Your feedback is important to us. If there are any problems with this release, check the Xamarin.iOS Forums and GitHub Issues for existing issues. If you do not find any matching issue, please feel free to start a new discussion and report an issue.

Open Source

Xamarin.iOS is based on the following open-source repositories:

A big Thank You! to the following folks that helped to make Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac even better: