Difference Between? and ! in Swift Language

Difference Between ? and ! in Swift Language?

As per the official Apple docs:

When working with optional values, you can write ? before operations
like methods, properties, and subscripting. If the value before the ?
is nil, everything after the ? is ignored and the value of the whole
expression is nil. Otherwise, the optional value is unwrapped, and
everything after the ? acts on the unwrapped value. In both cases, the
value of the whole expression is an optional value.

Once you’re sure that the optional does contain a value, you can
access its underlying value by adding an exclamation mark (!) to the
end of the optional’s name. The exclamation mark effectively says, “I
know that this optional definitely has a value; please use it.” This
is known as forced unwrapping of the optional’s value (...)

Apple Inc. 'The Swift Programming Language'. iBooks. https://itun.es/nl/jEUH0.l

what is the difference between ? and ! operator in swift?

An optional type can be nil

var nameOfToy: String?

The toy may have a name;

nameOfToy = "Buzz"

so

print (nameOfToy!)

is Buzz.

The question mark indicates that it is optional, i.e. can be nil, so you have to UNWRAP it with the !. This is because the variable is optional.

But what happens if there is no name of a toy, and you use !. In this case you get a nasty crash.

What is difference between ? and ! in Swift?

Use attachment.image!.size if you're guaranteed that image? isn't nil. If you're wrong (and it is nil) your app will crash. This is called forced unwrapping.

If you're not sure it won't be nil, use image?.

In your case image! is OK, since you control whether placeholder.png exists.

Read all of the documentation on Swift Optionals. It's a basic and fundamental part of the language.

What is difference between '&' and ',' in swift about Protocol Composition

From the Swift documentation on protocols, I think & is mainly used when you are requiring a variable to adopt to multiple protocols, ex:

func wishHappyBirthday(to celebrator: Named & Aged) {
    print("Happy birthday, \(celebrator.name), you're \(celebrator.age)!")
}

And you use , when you want to adopt a custom struct/class to multiple protocols:

struct SomeStructure: FirstProtocol, AnotherProtocol {
    // structure definition goes here
}

Difference between == and ===

In short:

== operator checks if their instance values are equal, "equal to"

=== operator checks if the references point the same instance, "identical to"

Long Answer:

Classes are reference types, it is possible for multiple constants and variables to refer to the same single instance of a class behind the scenes. Class references stay in Run Time Stack (RTS) and their instances stay in Heap area of Memory. When you control equality with == it means if their instances are equal to each other. It doesn't need to be same instance to be equal. For this you need to provide a equality criteria to your custom class. By default, custom classes and structures do not receive a default implementation of the equivalence operators, known as the “equal to” operator == and “not equal to” operator != . To do this your custom class needs to conform Equatable protocol and it's static func == (lhs:, rhs:) -> Bool function

Let's look at example:

class Person : Equatable {
    let ssn: Int
    let name: String

    init(ssn: Int, name: String) {
        self.ssn = ssn
        self.name = name
    }

    static func == (lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.ssn == rhs.ssn
    }
}

P.S.: Since ssn(social security number) is a unique number, you don't need to compare if their name are equal or not.

let person1 = Person(ssn: 5, name: "Bob")
let person2 = Person(ssn: 5, name: "Bob")

if person1 == person2 {
   print("the two instances are equal!")
}

Although person1 and person2 references point two different instances in Heap area, their instances are equal because their ssn numbers are equal. So the output will be the two instance are equal!

if person1 === person2 {
   //It does not enter here
} else {
   print("the two instances are not identical!")
}

=== operator checks if the references point the same instance, "identical to". Since person1 and person2 have two different instance in Heap area, they are not identical and the output the two instance are not identical!

let person3 = person1

P.S: Classes are reference types and person1's reference is copied to person3 with this assignment operation, thus both references point the same instance in Heap area.

if person3 === person1 {
   print("the two instances are identical!")
}

They are identical and the output will be the two instances are identical!

Swift foundation vs standard library?

To understand what's going on here, first distinguish three things:

• Swift library is the Swift native types, like String and Array.

• Foundation is the Cocoa Objective-C basic set of types, like NSString and NSArray and NSDate and NSData.

• Swift also contains an overlay library that shadows (without obscuring) types in the Foundation. For example, Date shadows NSDate, and Data shadows NSData. This makes the Cocoa Foundation a lot easier to use in Swift.

Note that there are two very different relations in which a Swift type can stand with respect to a Cocoa Objective-C type.

• String and Array are completely independent native Swift types. They are bridged to NSString and NSArray respectively, but they exist without Foundation.

• Data and Date are merely facades for NSData and NSDate respectively. If you import Swift but not Foundation, Data and Date are not even present.

Okay, so far so good. But this situation presents a quandary, because one would like to use Data and Date without the need for Foundation, in places like Linux that do not have it in the first place. Therefore, the project you have pointed to, https://github.com/apple/swift-corelibs-foundation, provides a backing for Data and Date (and so on) independent of Foundation.
But if you are developing for iOS or MacOS you would never use it, because the real Foundation is present.

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