How do I convert a Swift Array to a String?

Question

I know how to programmatically do it, but I'm sure there's a built-in way...

Every language I've used has some sort of default textual representation for a collection of objects that it will spit out when you try to concatenate the Array with a string, or pass it to a print() function, etc. Does Apple's Swift language have a built-in way of easily turning an Array into a String, or do we always have to be explicit when stringifying an array?

Answer 1

If the array contains strings, you can use the String's join method:

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]

let stringRepresentation = "-".join(array) // "1-2-3"

In Swift 2:

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]

let stringRepresentation = array.joinWithSeparator("-") // "1-2-3"

This can be useful if you want to use a specific separator (hypen, blank, comma, etc).

Otherwise you can simply use the description property, which returns a string representation of the array:

let stringRepresentation = [1, 2, 3].description // "[1, 2, 3]"

Hint: any object implementing the Printable protocol has a description property. If you adopt that protocol in your own classes/structs, you make them print friendly as well

In Swift 3

• join becomes joined, example [nil, "1", "2"].flatMap({$0}).joined()
• joinWithSeparator becomes joined(separator:) (only available to Array of Strings)

In Swift 4

var array = ["1", "2", "3"]
array.joined(separator:"-")