Swift String and Character

Created By:Debasis Das (Jan 2016)

In this post we will test the Swift String functions and see examples of expected behaviors

• Strings are ordered collections of characters
• Swift Strings are represented by the “String” Type
• Swift String literal syntax is similar to C. String concatenation is as simple as adding two string using the + operator
• String mutability is controlled by choosing between a variable and a constant using the “var” and “let”
• String Interpolation – We can use strings to insert contants, variables, literals and expressions to form a longer string
• Swift’s String type is bridged with Foundation’s NSString Class.
• Swift String is a value type. It means when a new string is created the value is copied when it is passed to a function or method or when it assigned to a constant or a variable. A new copy is created and assigned.

Swift String Literals

    
    func stringMethod1(){
        //String literal is a fixed sequence of textual characters
        let nameString = "John Doe";
        print(nameString); //John Doe
        
        //nameString = "Jane Doe" //This line will give an compiler error as the nameString is defined as a constant
        //Note: A constant string cannot be modified
        
        //Creating an empty string
        let emptyString = ""
        var anotherEmptyString = String()
        print("******** \n \(emptyString) \n********")
        /*
        ********
        
        ********
        */

    }

Swift String Mutability

  func stringMethod2(){
        
        var nameString = "John Doe"
        print(nameString) //John Doe

        nameString += " is a placeholder name for a man whose true identity is unknown"
        print(nameString) //John Doe is a placeholder name for a man whose true identity is unknown
        
        
    }

Swift Strings and Characters

    func stringMethod3(){
        let characterString = "ABCD"
        for character in characterString.characters{
            print (character)
        }
        /*
            A
            B
            C
            D
        */

Creating a Swift String by passing an array of Character Values

        let characterArray:[Character] = ["J","o","h","n"]
        let nameString = String(characterArray)
        print (nameString) //John

Swift Concatenating String

        let string1 = "Hello "
        let string2 = "World !"
        var string3 = string1 + string2;
        print(string3) //Hello World !

        string3 += " This is Swift 2.0"
        print(string3) //Hello World ! This is Swift 2.0
        
        string3.appendContentsOf(" and this is better than Swift 1.2")
        print (string3) //Hello World ! This is Swift 2.0 and this is better than Swift 1.2
        
        string3.append(Character("!"))
        print(string3) //Hello World ! This is Swift 2.0 and this is better than Swift 1.2!
        

Swift String Interpolation

String interpolation is a way to construct a new string value from a mix of constants, variables, literals and expressions by including their value inside a string literal

        let hourlyRate = 60.0
        let hoursPerDay = 8.0
        let daysInWeek = 5
        let weeksInYear = 52
        
        let salaryMessage = "A person working \(hoursPerDay) hours per day for \(daysInWeek) days a week for \(weeksInYear) weeks will earn \( hourlyRate * hoursPerDay * Double(daysInWeek) * Double(weeksInYear)) in a year"
        print (salaryMessage) //A person working 8.0 hours per day for 5 days a week for 52 weeks will earn 124800.0 in a year

Swift Unicode

        /*
        Swift's native string type is built from unicode scalar values. A unicode scalar is a unique 21 bit number for a number or character
        Special Characters 
            \0 null character
            \\ backslash
            \t horizontal tab
            \n line feed
            \r carriage return
            \" (double quote)
            \' single quote
        
        */
        let dollarSign = "\u{24}"
        print(dollarSign) //$

Swift Graphme Clusters

        /*
        An extended graphme cluster is a sequence of one or more Unicode scalars which when combined produces a single human -readable character

        //TBD 
        //PROVIDE SAMPLE CODE
        
        */

Swift Counting Characters

        let swiftMessageString = "Hello World ! This is Swift 2.0 and this is better than Swift 1.2!"
        print("the number of characters in Swift Message String is \(swiftMessageString.characters.count)") 
        //the number of characters in Swift Message String is 66
        
        print (swiftMessageString.startIndex) //0
        print (swiftMessageString.endIndex)   //66

Swift Accessing and Modifying a String

        /*
        Each string has an associated index type. String.Index corresponds to the position of each Character in the string
        */
        let welcomeMessage = "Hello World !"
        print(welcomeMessage.capitalizedString) //Hello World !
        print(welcomeMessage.characters) //CharacterView(_core: Swift._StringCore(_baseAddress: 0x00000001000080ac, _countAndFlags: 13, _owner: nil))
        print(welcomeMessage.characters.count) //13
        print(welcomeMessage.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")) //["Hello", "World", "!"]
        print(welcomeMessage.containsString("World")) //true
        print(welcomeMessage.decomposedStringWithCanonicalMapping) //Hello World !
        print(welcomeMessage.startIndex) //0
        print(welcomeMessage.endIndex)   //13
        print(welcomeMessage.hashValue)  //4799450059838842187
        print(welcomeMessage.hasPrefix("Hello")) //true
        print(welcomeMessage.hasSuffix("!"))     //true
        print(welcomeMessage.localizedCapitalizedString) //Hello World !
        print(welcomeMessage.localizedLowercaseString)   //hello world !
        print(welcomeMessage.localizedUppercaseString)   //HELLO WORLD !
        print(welcomeMessage.lowercaseString)            //hello world !
        print(welcomeMessage.rangeOfString("ell"))       //Optional(Range(1..<4))
        print(welcomeMessage.stringByAppendingString("This is Swift 2.0")) //Hello World !This is Swift 2.0

        print(welcomeMessage.endIndex.predecessor())        // 12
        //print(welcomeMessage.endIndex.successor())        // This will give a run time exception
        print(welcomeMessage.startIndex.successor())        // 1
        //print(welcomeMessage.startIndex.predecessor())    //This will give a run time exception
        
        for index in welcomeMessage.characters.indices{
            //print("index is \(index) and character is \(welcomeMessage[index])", terminator:"")
            print("index is \(index) and character is \(welcomeMessage[index])")
        }
        /*
            index is 0 and character is H
            index is 1 and character is e
            ...
            index is 11 and character is
            index is 12 and character is !
        */

Swift Insert and Remove character/ characters from a string

      
        var welcomeString = "Hello"
        welcomeString.insert("!", atIndex: welcomeString.endIndex)
        print(welcomeString) //Hello!
        
        welcomeString.insertContentsOf(" There".characters, at: welcomeString.endIndex)
        print(welcomeString) //Hello! There
        
        let range = welcomeString.rangeOfString(" There")
        print(range) //Optional(Range(6..<12))
        welcomeString.removeRange(range!)
        print(welcomeString) //Hello!
        

Swift String Comparison

• String & Character Equality
• Prefix Equality
• Suffix Equality

func stringMethod4(){
        let message1 = "Hello World"
        let message2 = "Hello World"
        if (message1 == message2){
            print ("Both the strings are equal")
        }
        else{
            print ("They are not equal")
        }
        //prints - Both the strings are equal

        if message1.uppercaseString != message2 {
            print("not same")
        }
        else{
            print("same")
        }
        //Prints not same
        
        let message3 = "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  was a British writer and physician"
        print(message3.hasPrefix("Sir")) //true
        print(message3.hasPrefix("sir")) //false
        print(message3.hasSuffix("physician")) //true
        
    }

Unicode Representation of Strings

//TBD
//PROVIDE SAMPLE CODE