Useful String Methods in Swift

This post is a complement for the previous one about Swift Strings.

I real-world projects, you can store a lot of strings but, it is important that you know how to transform those strings, to display them according to your view.

For this reason, let’s see usual methods that you can use for it.

Count characters #

Because a String is a Collection of Characters, you can use a very common method in Arrays: count()

Either you can use it in a constant/variable or in a String

let starWarsIntro = "A long time ago..."
let numberOfCharacters = starWarsIntro.count()  // numberOfCharacters value 18

let numberOfCharactersOfGreet = "Hello World!".count() // numberOfCharactersOfGreet value is 12

Even you can combine values in the same String through String interpolation:

let plotTwist = "I am your father"
print("The number of character in \(plotTwist) is \(plotTwist).count()")

// It will print "The number of character in I am your father is 16"

Insert or remove #

Also it is important add or remove characters or substrings

Insert #

For insert, you can:

• Insert a character with the method .insert(_ newElement:at:)
• Insert a substring with the method .insert(contentsOf:at:)

In at you will need to write a index. You can know more about indexes in Swift official Documentation - String Indices

var warning = "we have a problem"
warning.insert(contentsOf: "Houston, ", at: warning.startIndex)

print(warning) // It will print "Houston, we have a problem"

Remove #

Similar to insert, for remove Swift allow remove characters of substrings:

• Remove a character with the method .remove(:at:)
• Remove a substring with the method removeSubrange(_ bounds:)

Be careful with don’t exit out of bounds

var greeting = "Hello World!"
greeting.remove(at: greeting.index(before: greeting.endIndex))
print(greeting)  // It will print "Hello World"

Modify strings #

Uppercase and lowercase #

The methods that you can use for it are .uppercased(), .lowercased() or .capitalized()

Examples:

let lordOfTheRings = "A ring to rule them all"
print(lordOfTheRings.uppercased()) // It will print "A RING TO RULE THEM ALL"
print(lordOfTheRings.lowercased()) // It will print "a ring to rule them all"
print(lordOfTheRings.capitalized) // It will print "A Ring To Rule Them All"

Extract a string to an array #

For this goal you can use .components(separatedBy: " ")

let et = “E.T. phone home.”
let etWords = et.components(separatedBy: " ")

// etWords value is equal to ["E.T.", "phone", "home."]

Replacing occurrences #

In this case, a useful method is .replacingOccurrences(of:, with:), you can replace a character or a string with another character or string

let darkKnight = "I am Batman"
let coded = darkKnight.replacingOccurrences(of: "a", with: "4")

// coded value is equal to "I 4m B4tm4n"

Happy coding! 👨🏻‍💻