Convert Swift String to Array

Convert Swift string to array

It is even easier in Swift:

let string : String = "Hello br>let characters = Array(string)
println(characters)
// [H, e, l, l, o,  , , ,  , ]

This uses the facts that

• an Array can be created from a SequenceType, and
• String conforms to the SequenceType protocol, and its sequence generator
  enumerates the characters.

And since Swift strings have full support for Unicode, this works even with characters
outside of the "Basic Multilingual Plane" (such as ) and with extended grapheme
clusters (such as , which is actually composed of two Unicode scalars).

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Update: As of Swift 2, String does no longer conform to
SequenceType, but the characters property provides a sequence of the
Unicode characters:

let string = "Hello br>let characters = Array(string.characters)
print(characters)

This works in Swift 3 as well.

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Update: As of Swift 4, String is (again) a collection of its
Characters:

let string = "Hello br>let characters = Array(string)
print(characters)
// ["H", "e", "l", "l", "o", " ", ", ", " ", "]

How do I convert a Swift Array to a String?

If the array contains strings, you can use the String's join method:

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]

let stringRepresentation = "-".join(array) // "1-2-3"

In Swift 2:

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]

let stringRepresentation = array.joinWithSeparator("-") // "1-2-3"

This can be useful if you want to use a specific separator (hypen, blank, comma, etc).

Otherwise you can simply use the description property, which returns a string representation of the array:

let stringRepresentation = [1, 2, 3].description // "[1, 2, 3]"

Hint: any object implementing the Printable protocol has a description property. If you adopt that protocol in your own classes/structs, you make them print friendly as well

In Swift 3

• join becomes joined, example [nil, "1", "2"].flatMap({$0}).joined()
• joinWithSeparator becomes joined(separator:) (only available to Array of Strings)

In Swift 4

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]
array.joined(separator:"-")

Split a String into an array in Swift?

The Swift way is to use the global split function, like so:

var fullName = "First Last"
var fullNameArr = split(fullName) {$0 == " "}
var firstName: String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName: String? = fullNameArr.count > 1 ? fullNameArr[1] : nil

with Swift 2

In Swift 2 the use of split becomes a bit more complicated due to the introduction of the internal CharacterView type. This means that String no longer adopts the SequenceType or CollectionType protocols and you must instead use the .characters property to access a CharacterView type representation of a String instance. (Note: CharacterView does adopt SequenceType and CollectionType protocols).

let fullName = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{$0 == " "}.map(String.init)
// or simply:
// let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{" "}.map(String.init)

fullNameArr[0] // First
fullNameArr[1] // Last 

Swift string to array of single character strings

You can do it like as follows... Initialize a new string inside the map.

let test = "thisIsATest"
let array = test.map( { String($0) })

How to convert String Array to String in Swift

This should work.

let string = ["1","2","3","4","5"]

let newString = "\"[\"" + string.joined(separator: "\",\"") + "\"]\""

print(newString) // Prints "["1","2","3","4","5"]"

Edit: The best way is to use @vadian's answer. Albeit, this doesn't seem like a valid use case.

Swift 3 : Convert a String to an Array

Instead of splitting the character-view, you can use the simple components(separatedBy:) API.

Here's a sample that would look better and work:

if let toLearn = word?.text, 
   let recorded = result?.bestTranscription.formattedString  {

    let wordsToLearn = toLearn.components(separatedBy: " ")

    let recordedWords = recorded.components(separatedBy: " ")
}

Note: nonoptionals are better than forced unwraps and optionals.

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