Operator overloading

Swift supports operator overloading, which is a fancy way of saying that what an operator does depends on the values you use it with. For example, + sums integers like this:

let meaningOfLife = 42
let doubleMeaning = 42 + 42

But + also joins strings, like this:

let fakers = "Fakers gonna "
let action = fakers + "fake"

You can even use + to join arrays, like this:

let firstHalf = ["John", "Paul"]
let secondHalf = ["George", "Ringo"]
let beatles = firstHalf + secondHalf

Remember, Swift is a type-safe language, which means it won’t let you mix types. For example, you can’t add an integer to a string because it doesn’t make any sense.

SPONSORED Join a FREE crash course for mid/senior iOS devs who want to achieve an expert level of technical and practical skills – it’s the fast track to being a complete senior developer! Hurry up because it'll be available only until April 28th.

Click to save your free spot now

Sponsor Hacking with Swift and reach the world's largest Swift community!