class X {
static let global: [String:String] = [
"x":"x data",
"y":"y data",
"z":"z data"
]
func test(){
let type = "x"
var data:String = X.global[type]!
}
}
I'm getting the error: Value of optional type 'String?' not unwrapped.
Why do I need to use ! after X.global[type]? I'm not using any optional in my dictionary?
Edited:
Even if X.global[type] may not exist for the type, force unwrapping will still crash on runtime. A better approach may be:
if let valExist = X.global[type] {
}
but Xcode is giving me the wrong idea by hinting about optional type.
Dictionary accessor returns optional of its value type because it does not "know" run-time whether certain key is there in the dictionary or not. If it's present, then the associated value is returned, but if it's not then you get nil.
From the documentation:
You can also use subscript syntax to retrieve a value from the dictionary for a particular key. Because it is possible to request a key for which no value exists, a dictionary’s subscript returns an optional value of the dictionary’s value type. If the dictionary contains a value for the requested key, the subscript returns an optional value containing the existing value for that key. Otherwise, the subscript returns nil...
In order to handle the situation properly you need to unwrap the returned optional.
There are several ways:
Option 1:
func test(){
let type = "x"
if var data = X.global[type] {
// Do something with data
}
}
Option 2:
func test(){
let type = "x"
guard var data = X.global[type] else {
// Handle missing value for "type", then either "return" or "break"
}
// Do something with data
}
Option 3:
func test(){
let type = "x"
var data = X.global[type] ?? "Default value for missing keys"
}
If we look at the Dictionary implementation, subscript is returning a ValueType as optional because it doesn't know if the key is exists or not:
//Reading a key that is not present in `self` yields `nil`.
//Writing `nil` as the value for a given key erases that key from `self`.
subscript (key: KeyType) -> ValueType?
So when we try to get a value from our Dictionary we get it as an optional from the subscript; that is we have to unwrap the optional to get the underlying object. As mentioned in earlier answers, option2 is preferred.
guard var data = X.global[type] else {
//key = 'type' doesn't exists
}
//key exists so do something with 'data'
Related
I have some data I stored into a dictionary which is defined as:
let data = Dictionary<String, AnyObject>()
In this dictionary the value is always a string, but the value can be an array or integer or string. But when I try to access an item in a array in this dictionary, like:
let item = data["key"][0]
It gives me this error:
Cannot subscript value of type "AnyObject"
How should I access that item?
You need to tell the compiler that you're expecting an array:
if let array = data["key"] as? [Int] {
let item = array[0]
}
Without that, the compiler only knows that there MAY be an AnyObject in data["key"] (it might also be nil).
I have a dictionary initialized
var dictionary = [String: [Double]]()
And I want to append
dictionary["Hello"].append(0.0)
but this gives me error "nil".
I tried to solve this by
extension Dictionary {
func appendish(key: String, value: Double) {
if self[key] == nil {
this give me error "Ambiguous reference to member 'subscript'"
}
}
}
How do I solve this? Been stuck at this for hours.
Subscripting a Dictionary with a key returns an optional of type Value?. In your case, dictionary["Hello"] returns a [Double]?. This optionality models the possibility that the dictionary doesn't contain a value for the given key.
If you're only dealing with static data, it's best to just use a literal expression:
let dictionary = [
"Hello": [0.0]
]
If you're using dynamic data, then there are several ways to do what you're trying to achieve, depending on how you would like to handle the nil case:
Use optional chaining
dictionary["Hello"]?.append(0.0)
This appends to the array stored for the key "Hello", but does nothing if there's no such value for that key.
This has the downside of making bugs harder to catch, because the consequence of the silent nil case might not be observed until long after this part of the code has run.
Use force unwrapping
dictionary["Hello"]!.append(0.0)
This appends to the array stored for the key "Hello", but crashes the program if there's no such value for that key.
Unlike optional chaining, this makes it easy to catch the point of failure at runtime. Of course, it comes with the drawback of crashing your program.
Handle the nil case in your own way
if var array = dictionary["Hello"] {
dictionary["Hello"] = nil // This line is a performance optimisation that removes the need for array to be copied
array.append(0.0)
dictionary["Hello"] = array
}
else {
print("No array for the key \"Hello\"") // Handle this as you wish
}
A dictionary look up returns an Optional value because the key might not exist, in which case it returns nil.
If your intention is to append to the array if it exists or create one if there isn't one yet, then the nil coalescing operator ?? comes in handy:
var dict = [String: [Double]]()
dict["hello"] = (dict["hello"] ?? []) + [1]
print(dict) // ["hello": [1.0]]
dict["hello"] = (dict["hello"] ?? []) + [2]
print(dict) // ["hello": [1.0, 2.0]]
This method does create a new array instead of mutating the existing one.
There are a few ways you can do this. Firstly, this is incorrect code:
dictionary["Hello"].append(0.0)
There might not be an array associated with the key "Hello", in which case nil will be returned by the subscript of the dictionary. So you need to unwrap it, either forced or un-forced:
dictionary["Hello"]?.append(0.0)
// or
dictionary["Hello"]!.append(0.0)
But I think what you really want to do is
if dictionary["Hello"] != nil {
dictionary["Hello"]!.append(0.0)
} else {
dictionary["Hello"] = [0.0]
}
After a long time of fiddling around with extensions and stuff (I am not familiar with this area of swift), I finally wrote the method appendish method that you were intended to write:
extension Dictionary where Value : RangeReplaceableCollection & ExpressibleByArrayLiteral, Value.Iterator.Element == Value.Element {
mutating func appendish(key: Key, value: Value.Element) {
if self[key] != nil {
self[key]!.append(value)
} else {
self[key] = [value]
}
}
}
// test
var dict = [String: [Double]]()
dict.appendish(key: "Hello", value: 0.0)
class X {
static let global: [String:String] = [
"x":"x data",
"y":"y data",
"z":"z data"
]
func test(){
let type = "x"
var data:String = X.global[type]!
}
}
I'm getting the error: Value of optional type 'String?' not unwrapped.
Why do I need to use ! after X.global[type]? I'm not using any optional in my dictionary?
Edited:
Even if X.global[type] may not exist for the type, force unwrapping will still crash on runtime. A better approach may be:
if let valExist = X.global[type] {
}
but Xcode is giving me the wrong idea by hinting about optional type.
Dictionary accessor returns optional of its value type because it does not "know" run-time whether certain key is there in the dictionary or not. If it's present, then the associated value is returned, but if it's not then you get nil.
From the documentation:
You can also use subscript syntax to retrieve a value from the dictionary for a particular key. Because it is possible to request a key for which no value exists, a dictionary’s subscript returns an optional value of the dictionary’s value type. If the dictionary contains a value for the requested key, the subscript returns an optional value containing the existing value for that key. Otherwise, the subscript returns nil...
In order to handle the situation properly you need to unwrap the returned optional.
There are several ways:
Option 1:
func test(){
let type = "x"
if var data = X.global[type] {
// Do something with data
}
}
Option 2:
func test(){
let type = "x"
guard var data = X.global[type] else {
// Handle missing value for "type", then either "return" or "break"
}
// Do something with data
}
Option 3:
func test(){
let type = "x"
var data = X.global[type] ?? "Default value for missing keys"
}
If we look at the Dictionary implementation, subscript is returning a ValueType as optional because it doesn't know if the key is exists or not:
//Reading a key that is not present in `self` yields `nil`.
//Writing `nil` as the value for a given key erases that key from `self`.
subscript (key: KeyType) -> ValueType?
So when we try to get a value from our Dictionary we get it as an optional from the subscript; that is we have to unwrap the optional to get the underlying object. As mentioned in earlier answers, option2 is preferred.
guard var data = X.global[type] else {
//key = 'type' doesn't exists
}
//key exists so do something with 'data'
Semantically speaking, [String:AnyObject?] and [String:AnyObject] are the same thing in terms of the way they act, meaning they will return the same thing if I access a key that wasn't set and setting a key to nil will remove that key from the dictionary. Why aren't they considered the same type?
EDIT: I understand the difference from the compiler point of view from the answers. I decided to put the following code in the playground:
var optional = [String:AnyObject?]()
var regular = [String:AnyObject]()
//Some control keys
optional["controlkey"] = "valueoptional"
regular["controlkey"] = "valueRegular"
//Set the keys
optional["keyOptional"] = "valueoptional"
regular["keyRegular"] = "valueRegular"
//Unset the keys
optional["keyOptional"] = nil
regular["keyRegular"] = nil
for (key,val) in optional {
print("key: \(key)\tval: \(val)")
}
for (key,val) in regular {
print("key: \(key)\tval: \(val)")
}
To my surprise the optional did not print the key that was set to nil.
Output was as follow:
key: controlkey val: Optional(valueoptional) //The keys for the optional dictionary
key: controlkey val: valueRegular //The keys for the `regular` dictionary
Why doesn't the key that I set to nil show up?
From the Apple docs:
The Swift language defines the postfix ? as syntactic sugar for the
named type Optional, which is defined in the Swift standard
library.
The type AnyObject? is an enumeration with two cases, None and Some(Wrapped), which are used to represent values that may or may not be present. But AnyObject is responding to one that will be presented.
Setting nil for a key in dictionary means removing the element itself.
Try to set NSNull()
optional["keyOptional"] = NSNull()
Because a nullable type and a non nullable type aren't the same thing from the compiler point of view. It just happens that the Dictionnary interface eventually "blend them" in similar entity, but this is linked with the Dictionnary implementation, not really with the type system.
EDIT: Your update changes the context of the question, but setting to nil is a way to unset from my understanding.
They are different because you can actually store nil into [String:AnyObject?]. You cannot do it using optional[key] = value (subscript operator) because that one has a special behavior for nil (removes value) but you can do it:
var optional: [String:AnyObject?] = ["test": nil]
optional.updateValue(nil, forKey: "test2")
print(optional) // ["test2": nil, "test": nil]
Of course, getting a value from such a dictionary:
print(optional["test"]) // Optional(nil)
results in a double optional Optional<Optional<AnyObject>> (or AnyObject??) and interaction with such types is cumbersome so you should avoid storing nil into dictionaries.
Because setting a key to nil remove that key from the dictionary! From the documentation
Reading a key that is not present in self yields nil. Writing nil as the value for a given key erases that key from self
You can't store nil as a dictionary value. If you need something denote nothingness, use NSNull:
optional["keyOptional"] = NSNull()
regular["keyRegular"] = NSNull()
They aren't the same type because they aren't the same type ;-) Compilers are such literal creatures.
#Sulthan's answer is correct and more complete - I didn't see it until after I hit post on my own answer. But if you look up a key in a [String: AnyObject?] dictionary and a value is present, you'll get an optional wrapped in an optional - the result is an AnyObject??. You'd have to unwrap it twice to use it:
var optional = [String: AnyObject?]()
// I changed it to NSString because String isn't an AnyObject
v
optional["controlkey"] = NSString(string: "valueoptional")
print(optional["controlkey"]) // prints "Optional(Optional(valueoptional))"
if let val = optional["controlkey"] {
print(val) // prints "Optional(valueoptional)"
if let unwrappedVal = val {
print(unwrappedVal) // prints "valueoptional"
}
}
I want to check if there is a value in a array and if so assign to a String using a if-left statement:
if let scoreValue = scoreValueArray[element!]{
// do something with scoreValue
}
Error: Bound value in a conditional binding must be of optional type
So tried changing the ! to ? but error persists.
Any input appreciated.
scoreValueArray is an array of strings, where a String value is appended to array if a condition is met, then array is saved to NSUserdefaults.
So element is a int which corresponds to a index in the array, bt only if the index is occupied with a String, so
scoreValueArray[element!]
could return an 'Index out of bounds', hence want to use the if-let.
Although the accepted answer clearly puts why optional binding is not available in the current implementation, it doesn't provide with a solution.
As it is shown in this answer, protocols provide an elegant way of safely checking the bounds of an array. Here's the Swift 2.0 version:
extension Array {
subscript (safe index: Int) -> Element? {
return indices ~= index ? self[index] : nil
}
}
Which you can use like this:
let fruits = ["Apple", "Banana", "Cherry"]
if let fruit = fruits[safe: 4] {
// Do something with the fruit
}
It's not clear what type your scoreValueArray is, but for the sake of this answer, I'm going to assume it's an array of Int.
var scoreValueArray: Array<Int>
Now, if we look the definition of the Array struct, we'll find this:
struct Array<T> : MutableCollectionType, Sliceable {
// other stuff...
subscript (index: Int) -> T
// more stuff
}
So, calling the subscript method on our array (which is what we do when we say scoreValueArray) returns a non-optional. And non-optionals cannot be used in the conditional binding if let/if var statements.
We can duplicate this error message in a more simple example:
let foo: Int = 3
if let bar = foo {
// same error
}
This produces the same error. If we instead do something more like the following, we can avoid the error:
let foo: Int? = 3
if let bar = foo {
// perfectly valid
}
This is different from a dictionary, whose subscript method does return an optional (T?). A dictionary will return a value if the key passed in the subscript is found or nil if there is no value for the passed key.
We must avoid array-index-out-of-bounds exceptions in the same way we always do... by checking the array's length:
if element < scoreValueArray.count {
scoreValue = scoreValueArray[element]
}