Swift Print: Lines, Separator and Terminator

Use the print method to display strings and other values to the console.

Print. Some programs need an artistic user interface. Some do not. In Swift, we can develop console programs that output data to a terminal.

For debugging, many developers prefer print statements. These help us track control flow in programs. No complicated interfaces are required.

Example statements. This Swift program uses many calls to print strings and other values to the console. In Xcode these will appear in an output section of the window.

Tip: We can pass many types of objects to print(), such as Strings and Ints. For clear code, it is best not to convert to a string.

Print: In Swift 3, this adds a newline after the argument. We can specify a separator and terminator.

Interpolation: We can use the string interpolation syntax to write more complex data. We use an escaped parenthesis syntax.

Swift program that uses print // Call print with strings. // ... No newline is inserted. print("one ") print("two ") // An Int can be printed. print(3) // Print can handle multiple arguments. // ... Specify a separator and a terminator. print("cat", "dog", "bird", separator: ";", terminator: ".\n") // Print a bool. print(true) Output one two 3 cat;dog;bird. true

No newline. Sometimes we want to call print() and have no trailing newline. We must specify the "terminator" as an empty string. This avoids a trailing newline.

Here: We loop over the characters in an array. We then print them all on the same line, with no separating newlines.

Swift program that uses print, empty terminator var letters: [Character] = ["a", "b", "c", "d"] // Loop over characters in array. for c in letters { // Print with no terminator. print(c, terminator: "") } Output abcd

String interpolation. Often we need to print multiple variables in a single line, with some text in between them (like labels). String interpolation is ideal here.

Tip: We use escaped parentheses to begin variable lookups in a string interpolation. Here we separate two values with a ":" character.

Swift program that uses print, string interpolation var number = 10 var title = "The Sound and the Fury" // Print with format string. // ... String interpolation inserts both variables. print("\(number): \(title)") Output 10: The Sound and the Fury

CustomStringConvertible. The print function will access a description property on types that implement CustomStringConvertible. This way we can improve print output of classes.

Here: The Box class inherits from CustomStringConvertible and we provide a description. Print uses the description to write to the screen.

Caution: The description for Box is not a good example—it should include fields. But it shows how the property works.

Swift program that uses print, CustomStringConvertible class Box: CustomStringConvertible { var description: String { // Return a string that represents this instance. return "Box string representation" } } // Create new instance of class. let b = Box() // Print with CustomStringConvertible. print(b) Output Box string representation

A review. With print, a versatile method, we write to the console. Swift works well for console programs. But apps are a primary target as well.

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Swift Print: Lines, Separator and Terminator

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