Swift inheritance issue. How to get appropriate class object - swift

Question

I have two classes (to simplify I drop other filed the object is more complicated then the Person):
class Person
{
var name: String = "Default name"
init(object: PersonEntity)
{
name = object.daysMask
}
}
class Employer: Person
{
}
I have function that configure for me a person
func getConiguratedPerson(name: String) -> Person
{
let person = Person()
person.name = name
}
In case if I want to get Person I simple do this:
let person = getConiguratedPerson("Alex")
but what if I need Employer instead and I want to use this function as well
let employer = getConiguratedPerson("Alex") // returns Person as expected but need to have employer instead.
In Objective-C we can simple do this:
Employer *employer = Employer([self getConiguratedPerson:"Alex"]) if I remember.

Answer 1

The mistake is the getConfiguredPerson function. You want an initializer. Initializers return your own class, which is exactly what you want.
class Person {
var name: String = "Default name"
init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}
init(object: PersonEntity) {
self.init(object.daysMask)
}
}
class Employer: Person {}
Now to create a person, you just use Person(name: "Alex") and to get an employer you use Employer(name: "Alex").
Note that this is true in ObjC as well. You shouldn't have getConfiguredPerson there either. You'd should have [Person initWithName:].

Answer 2

You can't use upcasting here, because configured person is not of Employee type, but of Person type. To achieve the desired result I would suggest something like this:
class Person {
var name = "name"
required init() { }
}
class Employee: Person { }
func getPerson<T: Person>(name: String) -> T {
let person = T()
person.name = name
return person
}
let employee: Employee = getPerson("Alex")
or this if type of object returning by factory method depends on input:
func getPerson(name: String) -> Person {
if name != "Alex" {
return Person()
}
return Employee()
}
let employee = getPerson("Alex") as! Employee