How do you use String.substringWithRange? (or, how do Ranges work in Swift?)

Swift 2

Simple

let str = "My String"
let subStr = str[str.startIndex.advancedBy(3)...str.startIndex.advancedBy(7)]
//"Strin"

Swift 3

let startIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
let endIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)

str[startIndex...endIndex]       // "Strin"
str.substring(to: startIndex)    // "My "
str.substring(from: startIndex)  // "String"

Swift 4

substring(to:) and substring(from:) are deprecated in Swift 4.

String(str[..<startIndex])    // "My "
String(str[startIndex...])    // "String"
String(str[startIndex...endIndex])    // "Strin"

NOTE: @airspeedswift makes some very insightful points on the trade-offs of this approach, particularly the hidden performance impacts. Strings are not simple beasts, and getting to a particular index may take O(n) time, which means a loop that uses a subscript can be O(n^2). You have been warned.

You just need to add a new subscript function that takes a range and uses advancedBy() to walk to where you want:

import Foundation

extension String {
    subscript (r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        get {
            let startIndex = self.startIndex.advancedBy(r.startIndex)
            let endIndex = startIndex.advancedBy(r.endIndex - r.startIndex)

            return self[Range(start: startIndex, end: endIndex)]
        }
    }
}

var s = "Hello, playground"

println(s[0...5]) // ==> "Hello,"
println(s[0..<5]) // ==> "Hello"

(This should definitely be part of the language. Please dupe rdar://17158813)

For fun, you can also add a + operator onto the indexes:

func +<T: ForwardIndex>(var index: T, var count: Int) -> T {
  for (; count > 0; --count) {
    index = index.succ()
  }
  return index
}

s.substringWithRange(s.startIndex+2 .. s.startIndex+5)

(I don't know yet if this one should be part of the language or not.)


You can use the substringWithRange method. It takes a start and end String.Index.

var str = "Hello, playground"
str.substringWithRange(Range<String.Index>(start: str.startIndex, end: str.endIndex)) //"Hello, playground"

To change the start and end index, use advancedBy(n).

var str = "Hello, playground"
str.substringWithRange(Range<String.Index>(start: str.startIndex.advancedBy(2), end: str.endIndex.advancedBy(-1))) //"llo, playgroun"

You can also still use the NSString method with NSRange, but you have to make sure you are using an NSString like this:

let myNSString = str as NSString
myNSString.substringWithRange(NSRange(location: 0, length: 3))

Note: as JanX2 mentioned, this second method is not safe with unicode strings.

Tags:

Swift

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