The Compilation Pipeline: Where Obfuscation Lives

Feb 09, 2026 |

security clang llvm swift obfuscation

       ObjC                     Swift
         ↓                        ↓
    Preprocessor                  │
         ↓                        ↓
        AST                      AST
         │                        ↓
         │                    Raw SIL
         │                        ↓
         │                  Canonical SIL
         ↓                        ↓
      LLVM IR                  LLVM IR
         ↓                        ↓
     Assembly                 Assembly
         ↓                        ↓
    Object (.o)              Object (.o)
         └────────┬───────────────┘
                  ↓ linker
            Executable

View each stage:

# ObjC
clang -E file.m                    # preprocessed
clang -Xclang -ast-dump file.m     # AST
clang -S -emit-llvm file.m         # LLVM IR
clang -S file.m                    # assembly
clang -c file.m                    # object
clang file.o -o file               # executable

# Swift
swiftc -dump-ast file.swift        # AST
swiftc -emit-silgen file.swift     # raw SIL
swiftc -emit-sil file.swift        # canonical SIL
swiftc -emit-ir file.swift         # LLVM IR
swiftc -S file.swift               # assembly
swiftc -c file.swift               # object
swiftc file.o -o file              # executable

Where can obfuscation happen?

Level	Tools	Notes
Source	Swift Shield	Renames symbols before compile
LLVM IR	OLLVM, Hikari	Language agnostic, most common

Stock compilers don’t obfuscate - you need additional tooling.

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