Swift version: 5.6
When you’re just learning Swift, the difference between an optional (String?
), an implicitly unwrapped optional (String!
), and a regular type (String
) can seem awfully confusing. Here’s a quick summary that should explain the difference:
When you use String
you’re saying this will always have a string inside, and can never have nothing inside. It might be an empty string (""
), but even an empty string is still a string.
When you use String?
you’re saying this might have a string inside, but it might have nothing at all inside – not even an empty string. Swift won’t let you use these without unwrapping them, which is usually done using if let
.
When you use String!
you’re saying this might have a string inside, but it might have nothing at all inside – not even an empty string. However, Swift lets you use these as if they were a String
, as if they always do have a value, but if you try to use a nil value by accident your code will crash. This effectively lets you say “I know this might be nil, but I’m so sure it has a value that I’m willing for my program to crash if I’m wrong.”
So: String
is definitely a string, String?
might be nil or might be a string, and String!
might be nil but when you use it you’re absolutely sure it has a string.
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This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.
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