Overriding a stored property in Swift

Question

I noticed that the compiler won't let me override a stored property with another stored value (which seems odd):

class Jedi {
    var lightSaberColor = "Blue"
}


class Sith: Jedi {
    override var lightSaberColor = "Red" // Cannot override with a stored property lightSaberColor
}

However, I'm allowed to do this with a computed property:

class Jedi {
    let lightSaberColor = "Blue"
}


class Sith: Jedi {
    override var lightSaberColor : String{return "Red"}

}

Why am I not allowed to give it another value?

Why is overriding with a stored property an abomination and doing it with a computed one kosher? What where they thinking?

Answer 1

Why am I not allowed to just give it another value?

You are definitely allowed to give an inherited property a different value. You can do it if you initialize the property in a constructor that takes that initial value, and pass a different value from the derived class:

class Jedi {
    // I made lightSaberColor read-only; you can make it writable if you prefer.
    let lightSaberColor : String
    init(_ lsc : String = "Blue") {
        lightSaberColor = lsc;
    }
}

class Sith : Jedi {
    init() {
        super.init("Red")
    }
}

let j1 = Jedi()
let j2 = Sith()

println(j1.lightSaberColor)
println(j2.lightSaberColor)

Overriding a property is not the same as giving it a new value - it is more like giving a class a different property. In fact, that is what happens when you override a computed property: the code that computes the property in the base class is replaced by code that computes the override for that property in the derived class.

[Is it] possible to override the actual stored property, i.e. lightSaberColor that has some other behavior?

Apart from observers, stored properties do not have behavior, so there is really nothing there to override. Giving the property a different value is possible through the mechanism described above. This does exactly what the example in the question is trying to achieve, with a different syntax.