Generate random alphanumeric string in Swift

Swift 4.2 Update

Swift 4.2 introduced major improvements in dealing with random values and elements. You can read more about those improvements here. Here is the method reduced to a few lines:

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
  let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
  return String((0..<length).map{ _ in letters.randomElement()! })
}

Swift 3.0 Update

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let len = UInt32(letters.length)

    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let rand = arc4random_uniform(len)
        var nextChar = letters.character(at: Int(rand))
        randomString += NSString(characters: &nextChar, length: 1) as String
    }

    return randomString
}

Original answer:

func randomStringWithLength (len : Int) -> NSString {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

    var randomString : NSMutableString = NSMutableString(capacity: len)

    for (var i=0; i < len; i++){
        var length = UInt32 (letters.length)
        var rand = arc4random_uniform(length)
        randomString.appendFormat("%C", letters.characterAtIndex(Int(rand)))
    }

    return randomString
}

Here's a ready-to-use solution in Swiftier syntax. You can simply copy and paste it:

func randomAlphaNumericString(length: Int) -> String {
    let allowedChars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let allowedCharsCount = UInt32(allowedChars.characters.count)
    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let randomNum = Int(arc4random_uniform(allowedCharsCount))
        let randomIndex = allowedChars.index(allowedChars.startIndex, offsetBy: randomNum)
        let newCharacter = allowedChars[randomIndex]
        randomString += String(newCharacter)
    }

    return randomString
}

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If you prefer a Framework that also has some more handy features then feel free to checkout my project HandySwift. It also includes a beautiful solution for random alphanumeric strings:

String(randomWithLength: 8, allowedCharactersType: .alphaNumeric) // => "2TgM5sUG"