How does String.Index work in Swift
All of the following examples use
var str = "Hello, playground"
startIndex
and endIndex
startIndex
is the index of the first characterendIndex
is the index after the last character.
Example
// character
str[str.startIndex] // H
str[str.endIndex] // error: after last character
// range
let range = str.startIndex..<str.endIndex
str[range] // "Hello, playground"
With Swift 4's one-sided ranges, the range can be simplified to one of the following forms.
let range = str.startIndex...
let range = ..<str.endIndex
I will use the full form in the follow examples for the sake of clarity, but for the sake of readability, you will probably want to use the one-sided ranges in your code.
after
As in: index(after: String.Index)
after
refers to the index of the character directly after the given index.
Examples
// character
let index = str.index(after: str.startIndex)
str[index] // "e"
// range
let range = str.index(after: str.startIndex)..<str.endIndex
str[range] // "ello, playground"
before
As in: index(before: String.Index)
before
refers to the index of the character directly before the given index.
Examples
// character
let index = str.index(before: str.endIndex)
str[index] // d
// range
let range = str.startIndex..<str.index(before: str.endIndex)
str[range] // Hello, playgroun
offsetBy
As in: index(String.Index, offsetBy: String.IndexDistance)
- The
offsetBy
value can be positive or negative and starts from the given index. Although it is of the typeString.IndexDistance
, you can give it anInt
.
Examples
// character
let index = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)
str[index] // p
// range
let start = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)
let end = str.index(str.endIndex, offsetBy: -6)
let range = start..<end
str[range] // play
limitedBy
As in: index(String.Index, offsetBy: String.IndexDistance, limitedBy: String.Index)
- The
limitedBy
is useful for making sure that the offset does not cause the index to go out of bounds. It is a bounding index. Since it is possible for the offset to exceed the limit, this method returns an Optional. It returnsnil
if the index is out of bounds.
Example
// character
if let index = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7, limitedBy: str.endIndex) {
str[index] // p
}
If the offset had been 77
instead of 7
, then the if
statement would have been skipped.
Why is String.Index needed?
It would be much easier to use an Int
index for Strings. The reason that you have to create a new String.Index
for every String is that Characters in Swift are not all the same length under the hood. A single Swift Character might be composed of one, two, or even more Unicode code points. Thus each unique String must calculate the indexes of its Characters.
It is possible to hide this complexity behind an Int index extension, but I am reluctant to do so. It is good to be reminded of what is actually happening.