Book Image

Learning Swift Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Andrew J Wagner
Book Image

Learning Swift Second Edition - Second Edition

By: Andrew J Wagner

Overview of this book

Swift is Apple’s new programming language and the future of iOS and OS X app development. It is a high-performance language that feels like a modern scripting language. On the surface, Swift is easy to jump into, but it has complex underpinnings that are critical to becoming proficient at turning an idea into reality. This book is an approachable, step-by-step introduction into programming with Swift for everyone. It begins by giving you an overview of the key features through practical examples and progresses to more advanced topics that help differentiate the proficient developers from the mediocre ones. It covers important concepts such as Variables, Optionals, Closures, Generics, and Memory Management. Mixed in with those concepts, it also helps you learn the art of programming such as maintainability, useful design patterns, and resources to further your knowledge. This all culminates in writing a basic iOS app that will get you well on your way to turning your own app ideas into reality.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Learning Swift Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Core Swift types


Every programming language needs to name a piece of information so that it can be referenced later. This is the fundamental way in which code remains readable after it is written. Swift provides a number of core types that help you represent your information in a very comprehensible way.

Constants and variables

Swift provides two types of information: a constant and a variable:

// Constant
let pi = 3.14

// Variable
var name = "Sarah"

All constants are defined using the let keyword followed by a name, and all variables are defined using the var keyword. Both constants and variables in Swift must contain a value before they are used. This means that, when you define a new one, you will most likely give it an initial value. You do so by using the assignment operator (=) followed by a value.

The only difference between the two is that a constant can never be changed, whereas a variable can be. In the preceding example, the code defines a constant called pi that stores the information...