Mobile platforms dominate modern software development; however, transpiling code between Kotlin (Android) and Swift (iOS) remains a major challenge. This task is crucial for enabling cross-platform accessibility, particularly when porting iOS applications to Android. Despite its significance, research on Kotlin–Swift transpilation—and especially on fixing transpilation bugs—remains limited. In this paper, we present the first large-scale study of Kotlin–Swift transpilation bugs. We identify 149 real-world issues, introduce a taxonomy of common bug types, and propose novel mutation operators to address them. When combined with existing operators, our proposed set has the potential to fix 101 of these issues. Building upon the taxonomy of transpilation bugs and the mutation operators developed for their testing and repair, we outline a research agenda aimed at fully automating reliable transpilation for mobile platforms—paving the way for more robust and accessible cross-platform mobile development.
Khubaib Amjad Alam National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Maryam Hussain National University of Computer & emerging Sciences (FAST-NUCES), Umer Draz National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences,Islamabad, Muhammad Haroon National University of Computer & emerging Sciences (FAST-NUCES)
