Accessing the text in TextField by Cosmicmind - swift

Question

I am having some trouble using the text in textField. I've copied the relevant code below (and removed some things here and there that shouldn't affect the errors I am getting).
The code builds and runs fine.
I can input text into the textFields (email, password).
But when I try to use the text anywhere, it errors: fatal error: attempt to bridge an implicitly unwrapped optional containing nil on the Alamofire code, specifically the parameters.
Even when I just try to print(email) I get a nil error.
Am I missing something here? I feel like this should be easy but I can't seem to figure it out.
class loginPageViewController: UIViewController, TextFieldDelegate {
private var email: TextField!
private var password: TextField!
func loginButton(sender: RaisedButton!){
let parameters = [
"email" : email,
"password" : password
]
Alamofire.request(.POST, "https://kidgenius.daycareiq.com/api/v1/sessions", parameters: parameters, encoding: .URL)
//other alamofire code not relevant to question
}
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
prepareEmail()
preparePassword()
prepareLoginButton()
}
private func prepareEmail() {
let email : TextField = TextField(frame: 100, 100, 200, 45))
email.delegate = self
email.placeholder = "Email"
//I removed some non relevant code here, just styling stuff
view.addSubview(email)
}
private func preparePassword() {
let password : TextField = TextField(100, 200, 200, 25))
password.secureTextEntry = true
password.delegate = self
password.placeholder = "Password"
//some more removed styling code
view.addSubview(password)
}
private func prepareLoginButton() {
let loginButton : RaisedButton = RaisedButton(frame: 100, 250, 150 , 35))
loginButton.setTitle("Login", forState: .Normal)
loginButton.addTarget(self, action: "loginButton:", forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.TouchUpInside)
//removed some styling code here
view.addSubview(loginButton)
}
}

Answer 1

The issue is you declare your email variable on the top
private var email: TextField!
And then you also declare the email inside the function prepareEmail() again
let email : TextField = TextField(frame: 100, 100, 200, 45))
But your private var email: TextField! never gets instantiated
In order to fix your issue, remove the let when you instantiate the variable inside your prepareEmail()