Omitting parameter labels

You might have noticed that we don’t actually send any parameter names when we call print() – we say print("Hello") rather than print(message: "Hello").

You can get this same behavior in your own functions by using an underscore, _, for your external parameter name, like this:

func greet(_ person: String) {
    print("Hello, \(person)!")
}

You can now call greet() without having to use the person parameter name:

greet("Taylor")

This can make some code more natural to read, but generally it’s better to give your parameters external names to avoid confusion. For example, if I say setAlarm(5) it’s hard to tell what that means – does it set an alarm for five o’clock, set an alarm for five hours from now, or activate pre-configured alarm number 5?