How to fix the error “protocol can only be used as a generic constraint because it has Self or associated type requirements”

Swift version: 5.6

Paul Hudson    @twostraws    May 28th 2019

Protocols with associated types are a powerful, if somewhat treacherous, feature of Swift. Sometimes it’s fair to say that the only winning move is not to play – i.e., to avoid them entirely – but if that isn’t the case you are sometimes likely to find yourself facing a difficult error: “protocol can only be used as a generic constraint because it has Self or associated type requirements.”

As an example, here’s a protocol with an associated type:

protocol Identifiable {
    associatedtype ID
    var id: ID { get set }
}

So, whatever type wants to conform to Identifiable must state which type they use to identify themselves. We could create two instances of such types like this:

struct Person: Identifiable {
    var id: String
}

struct Website: Identifiable {
    var id: URL
}

That is, people identify themselves using a String, and websites use a URL. So far, so easy. However, if you want to write a function using Identifiable as parameters you’ll hit a problem. For example, you might try to write a function that compares two instances of Identifiable like this:

func compareThing1(_ thing1: Identifiable, against thing2: Identifiable) -> Bool {
    return true
}

That will issue the error “protocol 'Identifiable' can only be used as a generic constraint because it has Self or associated type requirements.”

The reason for the error is simple enough: although thing1 and thing2 being passed into the function both conform to Identifiable that doesn’t make them usable in the same way – the id of a person and the id of a website are completely different types, so there’s no meaningful way you can use them together.

As the error says, this protocol can be used only as a generic constraint. That’s actually pointing us to the solution here: if we use Identifiable as a generic constraint then we can tell Swift not only that thing1 and thing2 conform to the protocol but also that they are actually the same type.

func compareThing1<T: Identifiable>(_ thing1: T, against thing2: T) -> Bool {
    return true
}

That code fixes the problem, because Swift has enough information to know how you plan to use thing1 and thing2.

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