Pigeon

Warning: Pigeon is experimental and unsupported. It can be removed or changed at any time.

Pigeon is a code generator tool to make communication between Flutter and the host platform type-safe and easier.

Supported Platforms

Currently Pigeon only supports generating Objective-C code for usage on iOS and Java code for Android.

Runtime Requirements

Pigeon generates all the code that is needed to communicate between Flutter and the host platform, there is no extra runtime requirement. A plugin author doesn't need to worry about conflicting versions of Pigeon.

Usage

Flutter calling into iOS Steps

1. Add Pigeon as a dev_dependency.
2. Make a “.dart” file outside of your “lib” directory for defining the communication interface.
3. Run pigeon on your “.dart” file to generate the required Dart and Objective-C code.
4. Add the generated Dart code to lib for compilation.
5. Add the generated Objective-C code to your Xcode project for compilation (e.g. ios/Runner.xcworkspace).
6. Implement the generated iOS protocol for handling the calls on iOS, set it up as the handler for the messages.
7. Call the generated Dart methods.

Flutter calling into Android Steps

1. Add Pigeon as a dev_dependency.
2. Make a “.dart” file outside of your “lib” directory for defining the communication interface.
3. Run pigeon on your “.dart” file to generate the required Dart and Java code.
4. Add the generated Dart code to ./lib for compilation.
5. Add the generated Java code to your ./android/app/src/main/java directory for compilation.
6. Implement the generated Java interface for handling the calls on Android, set it up as the handler for the messages.
7. Call the generated Dart methods.

Rules for defining your communication interface

1. The file should contain no method or function definitions.
2. Datatypes are defined as classes with fields of the supported datatypes (see the supported Datatypes section).
3. Api's should be defined as an abstract class with either HostApi() or FlutterApi() as metadata. The former being for procedures that are defined on the host platform and the latter for procedures that are defined in Dart.
4. Method declarations on the Api classes should have one argument and a return value whose types are defined in the file or be void.

Example

See the “Example” tab.

Supported Datatypes

Pigeon uses the StandardMessageCodec so it supports any data-type platform channels supports [documentation]. Nested data-types are supported, too.

Note: Generics for List and Map aren't supported yet.

Feedback

File an issue in flutter/flutter with the word ‘pigeon’ clearly in the title and cc @gaaclarke.