What does unowned mean?
Swift version: 5.6
Unowned variables are similar to weak variables in that they provide a way to reference data without having ownership. However, weak variables can become nil – they are effectively optional. In comparison, unowned variables must never be set to nil once they have been initialized, which means you don't need to worry about unwrapping optionals.
The most common place you'll see unowned variables is with closures that declare [unowned self] – this means "I want to reference self inside this closure but I don't want to own it." Why unowned rather than weak? Both would work, but let's face it: if self is nil inside a closure, something has gone wrong!
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This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.
