Append Values in NSSet To An Array of Type [String] - swift

Question

I am attempting to get the values from an NSSet in core data and append those values to an array of type String.
func addStepsToArray() {
if let steps = entity.steps {
for i in steps {
recipeStep.append(String(i))
}
}
}
entity.steps is the list of steps tied to a core data entity. This is an NSSet. I am trying to copy those values to an array of type String.
#State var recipeStep: [String]
When trying to do this in my for in loop, I receive the following error: No exact matches in call to initializer
If I remove the conversion of "I" to String, I receive the following error:
Cannot convert value of type NSSet.Element (aka Any) to expected argument type String
Any idea on how to get this to work?

Answer 1

NSSet is defined in Objective C, which didn't have generics. It's an untyped collection, so you don't statically know anything about its elements.
As you've noticed, your i variable isn't a String, it's an Any.
You're confusing type coercion ("casting") with type conversion. If i were a Double, you could call String(i) to invoke an initializer which takes a double, and processes into a String.
You tried something similar by calling String(i), where you're making the Swift compiler find an initializer on String with the signitiure init(_: Any).
There is no such initializer. And besides, that's not what you want. You don't want to create a new String from a different kind of value. You already have a string, it's just "hidden" behind an Any reference.
What you're looking for is to do a down-cast, from Any to String:
func addStepsToArray() {
if let steps = entity.steps {
for i in steps {
guard let step = i as? String else {
fatalError("Decide what to do if the value isn't a String.")
}
recipeStep.append(i as String)
}
}
}
I'll warn you though, there are several issues/blemishes with this code:
You're using a for loop to do what is ultimately just a mapping operation
Your computation doesn't return its ouput, and instead indirectly achieves its goal through a side-effect on recipeStep
Your computation doesn't take a its input as a parameter, and instead indirectly achieves its goal through a side-effect on entity
i is conventionally expected to be an integer index of a for loop iterating over a sequence of numbers. Here it's an Any (a String at runtime)
Here's what I would suggest instead:
func getRecipeSteps(from entity: MyEntityType) -> [String] {
guard let steps = entity.steps else { return [] }
return steps.map { step in
guard let stringStep = step as? String else {
fatalError("Decide what to do if the value isn't a String.")
}
return step
}
}
Then in the rest of your code (and your tests), you can write self.recipeSteps = getRecipeSteps(from: myEntity). Elegant!
If you're certain that these entity.steps values can only ever be strings, then you can boil this down to a single map with a force-cast:
func getRecipeSteps(from entity: MyEntityType) -> [String] {
entity.steps?.map { $0 as! String } ?? []
}

Answer 2

Just convert directly：
let set = Set(["1", "2", "3"])
let array = Array(set)
DDLog(set)//Set<String>)
DDLog(array)//[String]