A few days back, I needed to iterate three sequences at once. While Swift supports zip, allowing you to zip two sequences together and iterate across item pairs, until variadic generics hits the language, there’s no way to directly zip three or more.

Until that kind of tech hits the language, you can construct nested tuples for your occasional zip-3 or zip-4 needs without overly straining readability as in this example:

for (value1, (value2, value3)) in zip(seq1, zip(seq2, seq3)) {
  // use value1, value2, value3
}

I thought I’d leave this here in case it was of help to anyone.

I’ve already posted about using string interpolation to customize Optional presentation and for coercing integer values via radix and to conditionalize text, and yet there is still so much more you can do with this new language feature.

Consider formatters. Both Swift and Cocoa/Cocoa touch support a number of these, ranging from numbers and currency to dates and times. They are a natural interpolation fit.

For example, dates are easy right out of the box. Just pass a formatter and you’re done. Note that I skip the formatter label. You’ll see why in just a second.

public extension String.StringInterpolation {
  mutating func appendInterpolation(_ value: Date, _ formatter: DateFormatter) {
    appendLiteral(formatter.string(from: value))
  }
}

For dates, it’s more about how do you create formatters than about interpolating them. Here’s the design I’m using right now:

public extension DateFormatter {
  /// Returns an initialized `DateFormatter` instance
  static func format(date: Style, time: Style) -> DateFormatter {
    let formatter = DateFormatter()
    formatter.locale = Locale.current
    (formatter.dateStyle, formatter.timeStyle) = (date, time)
    return formatter
  }
}

For example:

print("\(Date(), .format(date: .short, time: .none))") // 12/16/18

I left off the formatter: label because the call to format documents the role of the second argument.

I initially went with a convenience initializer, along the same lines, but the calls were uglier:

print("\(Date(), DateFormatter(date: .none, time: .long))") // 8:20:15 AM MST

I also tried static preset properties and option sets, as well as dateStyle:timeStyle: interpolation arguments as but none of them really felt as readable as the format(date:time:) approach.

Number formats are a bit harder as they only work with NSNumber, which means you either have to create interpolators for both BinaryInteger and FloatingPoint, or you have to use some magic. Brent Royal-Gordon tried helping me work with _ObjectiveCBridgeable but I couldn’t get it to work. For some reason, Swift just wouldn’t pick up, for example, Double.pi as a bridgeable value.

For right now, I have this, which I’m not particularly happy with:

public extension String.StringInterpolation {
  /// Interpolates a floating point value using a
  /// number formatter.
  mutating func appendInterpolation<Value: FloatingPoint>(_ number: Value, formatter: NumberFormatter) {
    if
      let value = number as? NSNumber,
      let string = formatter.string(from: value) {
      appendLiteral(string)
    } else {
      appendLiteral("Unformattable<\(number)>")
    }
  }
  
  /// Interpolates an integer value using a number formatter
  mutating func appendInterpolation<Value: BinaryInteger>(_ number: Value, formatter: NumberFormatter) {
    if
      let value = number as? NSNumber,
      let string = formatter.string(from: value) {
      appendLiteral(string)
    } else {
      appendLiteral("Unformattable<\(number)>")
    }
  }
}

Creating number and currency formatters with NumberFormatter() is an ugly and tedious task. For example, here’s a formatter that sets rounding, localization, padding, and digit count:

let formatter = NumberFormatter()
formatter.localizesFormat = true
formatter.roundingMode = .halfUp
formatter.minimumFractionDigits = 1
formatter.maximumFractionDigits = 4
formatter.paddingPosition = .beforePrefix
formatter.paddingCharacter = "0"
formatter.minimumIntegerDigits = 5

"\(Double.pi, formatter: formatter)" // 00003.1416
"\(5, formatter: formatter)" // 00005.0

There really should be better and Swiftier ways to express these formatting preferences. For one thing, the minimum and maximum stuff could be expressed as ranges specific to the whole and fractional parts. I’m not convinced there should be just one formatter type devoted to handling integers, floating point numbers, and currency. Why not three?

Integers, to my best understanding, don’t need to worry about localization. And why not throw radix control into the IntegerFormatter mix while you’re at it? I’d imagine a well-designed integer formatter would easily replace my radix/prefix/bytewise/width interpolation that I used in a recent post.

In fact, I think I’ll design exactly that. Off to Xcode…

Some fantastic coverage of interpolation from Olivier Halligon here: Part 1 and Part 2.

My prosaic kicking the wheels repo is over at GitHub.

(And I’m trying to redesign Olivier’s attributed strings because somehow I feel they should be enumeration cases with associated value payloads rather than static members.)

I’m still kicking the tires and enjoying the new string interpolation features in Swift 5. Today’s extension enables (optionally padded) radix-based interpolation. You interpolate a number and specify a radix, the numerical base used to present it.

For example:

"\(42, radix: .hex)" // 2a
"\(42, radix: .binary)" // 101010
"\(42, radix: .octal)" // 52
"\(0x2a, radix: .decimal)" // 42
"\(15, radix: .hex, prefix: true, toWidth: 2)" // 0x0F

With padding you can ensure, for example, that a non-wide color is presented using two digits per color, with or without a prefix. Start with 15 and end up with F, 0F, or 0x0F , as desired.

It’s a simple extension for a task I use pretty regularly. I decided to use lowercase prefixes (0x and 0b) and uppercase hex (7F vs 7f). If you’d rather swap that out, change the prefix property and/or the first line in the interpolation:

public extension String.StringInterpolation {
    /// Represents a single numeric radix
    enum Radix: Int {
        case binary = 2, octal = 8, decimal = 10, hex = 16
        
        /// Returns a radix's optional prefix
        var prefix: String {
             return [.binary: "0b", .octal: "0o", .hex: "0x"][self, default: ""]
        }
    }
    
    /// Return padded version of the value using a specified radix
    mutating func appendInterpolation<I: Binary Integer>(_ value: I, radix: Radix, prefix: Bool = false, toWidth width: Int = 0) {
        
        // Values are uppercased, producing `FF` instead of `ff`
        var string = String(value, radix: radix.rawValue).uppercased()
        
        // Strings are pre-padded with 0 to match target widths
        if string.count < width {
            string = String(repeating: "0", count: max(0, width - string.count)) + string
        }
        
        // Prefixes use lower case, sourced from `String.StringInterpolation.Radix`
        if prefix {
            string = radix.prefix + string
        }
        
        appendInterpolation(string)
    }
}

I haven’t had a chance to test this much so if you see any issues, please let me know.

I have more to follow with more general NumberFormatter approaches that extend the interpolator (thanks, Dave DeLong!) and some fun suggestions and examples that will cover the new custom string delimiters.

Update James Dempsey writes:

Thanks to SE-0228, you can control exactly how you want string interpolations to print. Thank you Brent for giving this to us. It’s a doozy! Let me share some examples.

Consider printing optionals. You use:

"There's \(value1) and \(value2)"

And get an instant warning:

You can click the fixes to suppress the warning but you’ll still get an output that looks like this: “There’s Optional(23) and nil”.

"There's \(String(describing: value1)) and \(String(describing: value2))"

Now you can strip the “Optional” and produce “There’s 23 and nil”, allowing you to print values directly:

extension String.StringInterpolation {
    /// Provides `Optional` string interpolation without forcing the
    /// use of `String(describing:)`.
    public mutating func appendInterpolation(_ value: T?, default defaultValue: String) {
        if let value = value {
            appendInterpolation(value)
        } else {
            appendLiteral(defaultValue)
        }
    }
}

// There's 23 and nil
"There's \(value1, default: "nil") and \(value2, default: "nil")"

You might create a set of styles and custom interpolation to support consistent presentation for optional output:

extension String.StringInterpolation {
    /// Optional Interpolation Styles
    public enum OptionalStyle {
        /// Includes the word `Optional` for both `some` and `none` cases
        case descriptive
        /// Strips the word `Optional` for both `some` and `none` cases
        case stripped
        /// Uses system interpolation, which includes the word `Optional` for
        /// `some` cases but not `none`.
        case `default`
    }
    
    /// Interpolates optional values using a supplied `optStyle` style
    public mutating func appendInterpolation(_ value: T?, optStyle style: String.StringInterpolation.OptionalStyle) {
        switch style {
        // Includes the word `Optional` for both `some` and `none` cases
        case .descriptive:
            if value == nil {
                appendLiteral("Optional(nil)")
            } else {
                appendLiteral(String(describing: value))
            }
        // Strips the word `Optional` for both `some` and `none` cases
        case .stripped:
            if let value = value {
                appendInterpolation(value)
            } else {
                appendLiteral("nil")
            }
        // Uses system interpolation, which includes the word `Optional` for
        // `some` cases but not `none`.
        default:
            appendLiteral(String(describing: value))
        }
    }
    
    /// Interpolates an optional using "stripped" interpolation, omitting
    /// the word "Optional" from both `.some` and `.none` cases
    public mutating func appendInterpolation(describing value: T?) {
        appendInterpolation(value, optStyle: .stripped)
    }

}

// "There's Optional(23) and nil"
"There's \(value1, optStyle: .default) and \(value2, optStyle: .default)"

// "There's Optional(23) and Optional(nil)"
"There's \(value1, optStyle: .descriptive) and \(value2, optStyle: .descriptive)"

// "There's 23 and nil"
"There's \(describing: value1) and \(describing: value2)"

Interpolation isn’t limited to tweaking optionals. Say you want to control whether a string is added without having to use a ternary expression with an empty string:

// Include on success (Thanks, Nate Cook)
extension String.StringInterpolation {
    /// Provides Boolean-guided interpolation that succeeds only when the condition
    /// evaluates to true.
    mutating func appendInterpolation(if condition: @autoclosure () -> Bool, _ literal: StringLiteralType) {
        guard condition() else { return }
        appendLiteral(literal)
    }
}

// Old
"Cheese Sandwich \(isStarred ? "(*)" : "")"

// New
"Cheese Sandwich \(if: isStarred, "(*)")"

There’s lots more you can do and it’s all exciting and fun.

For whatever reason, my unwind segues for modal presentations weren’t working when my presenting source was my navigation’s root controller. This appears to be a common issue if you hunt around for “modal unwind doesn’t work”. A lot of the advice simply went: “You just can’t do that.”

After spending far too much time dealing with, I discovered that the autocomplete version, namely:

@IBAction func unwind(for unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue, towards subsequentVC: UIViewController)

doesn’t work. Instead, what you need is:

@IBAction func unwindFor(_ unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue, towards subsequentVC: UIViewController)

If you notice, the difference is unwind(for vs unwindFor(. I figured this out by implementing

func canPerformUnwindSegueAction(_ action: Selector, from fromViewController: UIViewController, withSender sender: Any) -> Bool

and looking at the selector it expected to perform (specifically unwindFor:towards:). Moving the For outside fixed the problem and granted me a working unwind, allowing me to fetch state data from the modal controller and pass it back to the source.

I assume this issue arose because of the automatic translation of Cocoa APIs into Swift and I wonder if there are other issues that might arise from the same. Have you encountered such things? What are your thoughts?