SwiftWhen 0.1.0

SwiftWhen 0.1.0

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Maintained by Sterling Hackley.

SwiftWhen 0.1.0

  • By
  • Sterling Hackley

SwiftWhen

CocoaPods SPM License

SwiftWhen is an experimental µframework that attempts to emulate a Kotlin when expression.

This is made possible by function builders, a new Swift feature proposed in Swift 5.1.

Integration

Cocoapods

Add the following line to your Podfile

pod 'SwiftWhen', '~> 0.1.0'

Swift Package Manager

Declare SwiftWhen as a dependency in your Package.swift file:

.package(url: "https://github.com/shackley/SwiftWhen", from: "0.1.0")

Usage

when can be used as concise alternative to a switch statement.

let x = 2
when(x) {
    1 => print("x is 1")
    2 => print("x is 2")
    3 => print("x is 3")
}
// x is 2

Since when is a function, it can be used as an expression.

let x = 2
let result = when(x) {
    1 => "x is 1"
    2 => "x is 2"
    3 => "x is 3"
}
print(result)
// x is 2

Execute multiple statements by using a closure.

let x = 2
when(x) {
    1 => {
        print("x is 1")
        foo()
    }
    2 => {
        print("x is 2")
        bar()
    }
}
// x is 2

If multiple cases should be handled the same way, you can combine them by using an array.

let x = 2
when(x) {
  [1, 3, 5] => print("x is 1, 3, or 5")
  [2, 4, 6] => print("x is 2, 4, or 6")
}
// x is 2, 4, or 6

The otherwise keyword is used to handle unknown cases.

let x = 5
when(x) {
  1 => print("x is 1")
  2 => print("x is 2")
  otherwise => print("x is something else")
}
// x is something else

when works with ranges, too.

let x = 15
when(x) {
  0 ..< 10 => print("x is between 0 and 9")
  10 ..< 20 => print("x is between 10 and 19")
  20 ... 30 => print("x is between 20 and 30")
  otherwise => print("x is something else")
}
// x is between 10 and 19

when can also be used without an argument. This acts as a simple if-else chain where the conditions are Boolean expressions. The first expression that is true is chosen.

let x = 5
when {
    x == 1 => print("x is 1")
    x == 5 => print("x is 5")
    otherwise => print("x is something else")
}
// x is 5

Caveats

Because when is just a function and not an actual Swift language feature, it is not possible to do exhaustivity checks at compile time. If a when expression does not contain a matching case, a fatalError will occur at runtime.