How to make Swift 3 recognize a textfield name which is increasing? - swift

Question

I have 26 textfields which will provide different float values each, and I want to create a loop to make it easier & faster to add those values into a single variable.
My textfields are named a1, a2, ... a26 so the only thing that changes is the number after 'a'. How can I make swift to recognize the textfield name as I'm increasing the variable 'x'.
I was thinking something like this:
var x : Int = 1
var total : Float = 0;
var y : Float = 0;
while (x == 26) {
y = a/(x).floatValue;
total += y;
x+=1;
}
My idea is obviously not working 😕

Answer 1

Make an array containing all 26 text fields, and iterate over them:
let textfields = [a1, a2, ..., a26]
for textfield in textfields {
total += textfield.floatValue
}

Answer 2

I agree with #jtbandes' comment that it is best to start with arrays and loops, so you never need all 26 to be separate variables. If your textFields are #IBOutlets, you can use an outlet collection (which is just a single array to hold all of the textFields).
#IBOutlet var textfields: [NSTextField]!
Then you'd simply do:
for textfield in textfields {
total += textfield.floatValue
}
In the interest of showing what is possible, assuming the textfields are properties of your class (and your class derives from NSObject), you can use key-value coding to get the values:
for i in 1...26 {
if let tf = value(forKey: "a\(i)") as? NSTextField {
total += tf.floatValue
}
}
Full example for macOS:
import Cocoa
class ViewController: NSViewController {
var a1 = NSTextField()
var a2 = NSTextField()
var a3 = NSTextField()
func total() {
// give them some values for testing purposes
a1.stringValue = "1.2"
a2.stringValue = "2.3"
a3.stringValue = "3.14"
var total: Float = 0.0
for i in 1...3 {
if let tf = value(forKey: "a\(i)") as? NSTextField {
total += tf.floatValue
}
}
print(total)
}
}
ViewController().total() // 6.64
Full example for iOS:
import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController {
var a1 = UITextField()
var a2 = UITextField()
var a3 = UITextField()
func total() {
// give them some values for testing purposes
a1.text = "1.2"
a2.text = "2.3"
a3.text = "3.14"
var total: Float = 0.0
for i in 1...3 {
if let tf = value(forKey: "a\(i)") as? UITextField {
total += ((tf.text ?? "") as NSString).floatValue
}
}
print(total)
}
}
ViewController().total() // 6.64