Default optional parameter in Swift function

Optionals and default parameters are two different things.

An Optional is a variable that can be nil, that's it.

Default parameters use a default value when you omit that parameter, this default value is specified like this: func test(param: Int = 0)

If you specify a parameter that is an optional, you have to provide it, even if the value you want to pass is nil. If your function looks like this func test(param: Int?), you can't call it like this test(). Even though the parameter is optional, it doesn't have a default value.

You can also combine the two and have a parameter that takes an optional where nil is the default value, like this: func test(param: Int? = nil).

The default argument allows you to call the function without passing an argument. If you don't pass the argument, then the default argument is supplied. So using your code, this...

test()

...is exactly the same as this:

test(nil)

If you leave out the default argument like this...

func test(firstThing: Int?) {
    if firstThing != nil {
        print(firstThing!)
    }
    print("done")
}

...then you can no longer do this...

test()

If you do, you will get the "missing argument" error that you described. You must pass an argument every time, even if that argument is just nil:

test(nil)   // this works

Swift is not like languages like JavaScript, where you can call a function without passing the parameters and it will still be called. So to call a function in Swift, you need to assign a value to its parameters.

Default values for parameters allow you to assign a value without specifying it when calling the function. That's why test() works when you specify a default value on test's declaration.

If you don't include that default value, you need to provide the value on the call: test(nil).

Also, and not directly related to this question, but probably worth to note, you are using the "C++" way of dealing with possibly null pointers, for dealing with possible nil optionals in Swift. The following code is safer (specially in multithreading software), and it allows you to avoid the forced unwrapping of the optional:

func test(firstThing: Int? = nil) {
    if let firstThing = firstThing {
        print(firstThing)
    }
    print("done")
}
test()