Swift Type 'string.index' has no subscript members - swift

Question

I'm currently converting C++ code to Swift and I've gotten stuck on one part. The parameter passed into the function is a string and the area where I'm stuck is when attempting to set a variable based on the second to last character of a string to check for a certain character.
The error shows up on this line:
line[i-1]
I've tried casting this value to an Int but this didn't work:
Int(line[i - 1])
I've also tried to see if the string's startIndex function which takes a Int would work but it didn't:
line.startIndex[i - 1]
Here is the full function:
func scanStringForSpecificCharacters(line: String){
var maxOpen: Int = 0;
var minOpen: Int = 0;
minOpen = 0;
maxOpen = 0;
var i = 0
while i < line.characters.count {
for character in line.characters {
//var c: Character = line[i];
if character == "(" {
maxOpen += 1;
if i == 0 || line[i - 1] != ":" {
minOpen += 1;
}
}
else if character == ")"{
minOpen = max(0,minOpen-1);
if i == 0 || line[i-1] != ":"{
maxOpen -= 1;
}
if maxOpen < 0{
break;
}
}
}
if maxOpen >= 0 && minOpen == 0{
print("YES")
}else{
print("NO")
}
}
}

Answer 1

Strings in Swift aren't indexed collections and instead you can access one of four different views: characters, UTF8, UTF16, or unicodescalars.
This is because Swift supports unicode, where an individual characters may actually be composed of multiple unicode scalars.
Here's a post that really helped me wrap my head around this: https://oleb.net/blog/2016/08/swift-3-strings/
Anyway, to answer you question you'll need to create an index using index(after:), index(before:), or index(_, offsetBy:).
In your case you'd want to do something like this:
line.index(line.endIndex, offsetBy: -2) // second to last character
Also, you'll probably find it easier to iterate directly using a String.Index type rather than Int:
let line = "hello"
var i = line.startIndex
while i < line.endIndex {
print(line[i])
i = line.index(after: i)
}
// prints ->
// h
// e
// l
// l
// o

Answer 2

Working with Strings in Swift was changed several times during it's evolution and it doesn't look like C++ at all. You cannot subscript string to obtain individual characters, you should use index class for that. I recommend you read this article:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/StringsAndCharacters.html

Answer 3

As already pointed out in the other answers, the compiler error
is caused by the problem that you cannot index a Swift String with
integers.
Another problem in your code is that you have a nested loop which is
probably not intended.
Actually I would try to avoid string indexing at all and only
enumerate the characters, if possible. In your case, you can
easily keep track of the preceding character in a separate variable:
var lastChar: Character = " " // Anything except ":"
for char in line.characters {
if char == "(" {
maxOpen += 1;
if lastChar != ":" {
minOpen += 1;
}
}
// ...
lastChar = char
}
Or, since you only need to know if the preceding character is
a colon:
var lastIsColon = false
for char in string.characters {
if char == "(" {
maxOpen += 1;
if !lastIsColon {
minOpen += 1;
}
}
// ...
lastIsColon = char == ":"
}
Another possible approach is to iterate over the string and a shifted
view of the string in parallel:
for (lastChar, char) in zip([" ".characters, line.characters].joined(), line.characters) {
// ...
}

Answer 4

As others have already explained, trying to index into Swift strings is a pain.
As a minimal change to your code, I would recommend that you just create an array of the characters in your line up front:
let linechars = Array(line.characters)
And then anywhere you need to index into the line, use linechars:
This:
if i == 0 || line[i-1] != ":" {
becomes:
if i == 0 || linechars[i-1] != ":" {