Is there a way to create a String from utf16 array in swift?

Update for Swift 2.1:

You can create a String from an array of UTF-16 characters with the

public init(utf16CodeUnits: UnsafePointer<unichar>, count: Int)

initializer. Example:

let str = "H€llo "

// String to UTF16 array:
let utf16array = Array(str.utf16)
print(utf16array)
// Output: [72, 8364, 108, 108, 111, 32, 55357, 56836]

// UTF16 array to string:
let str2 = String(utf16CodeUnits: utf16array, count: utf16array.count)
print(str2)
// H€llo 

---

Previous answer:

There is nothing "built-in" (as far as I know), but you can use the UTF16 struct which provides a decode() method:

extension String {

    init?(utf16chars:[UInt16]) {
        var str = ""
        var generator = utf16chars.generate()
        var utf16 : UTF16 = UTF16()
        var done = false
        while !done {
            let r = utf16.decode(&generator)
            switch (r) {
            case .EmptyInput:
                done = true
            case let .Result(val):
                str.append(Character(val))
            case .Error:
                return nil
            }
        }
        self = str
    }
}

Example:

let str = "H€llo "

// String to UTF16 array:
let utf16array = Array(str.utf16)
print(utf16array)
// Output: [72, 8364, 108, 108, 111, 32, 55357, 56836]

// UTF16 array to string:
if let str2 = String(utf16chars: utf16array) {
    print(str2)
    // Output: H€llo 
}

Slightly more generic, you could define a method that creates a string from an array (or any sequence) of code points, using a given codec:

extension String {
    init?<S : SequenceType, C : UnicodeCodecType where S.Generator.Element == C.CodeUnit>
        (codeUnits : S, var codec : C) {
        var str = ""
        var generator = codeUnits.generate()
        var done = false
        while !done {
            let r = codec.decode(&generator)
            switch (r) {
            case .EmptyInput:
                done = true
            case let .Result(val):
                str.append(Character(val))
            case .Error:
                return nil
            }
        }
        self = str
    }
}

Then the conversion from UTF16 is done as

if let str2a = String(codeUnits: utf16array, codec: UTF16()) {
    print(str2a)
}

---

Here is another possible solution. While the previous methods are "pure Swift", this one uses the Foundation framework and the automatic bridging between NSString and Swift String:

extension String {

    init?(utf16chars:[UInt16]) {
        let data = NSData(bytes: utf16chars, length: utf16chars.count * sizeof(UInt16))
        if let ns = NSString(data: data, encoding: NSUTF16LittleEndianStringEncoding) {
            self = ns as String
        } else {
            return nil
        }
    }
}