GO FURTHER, FASTER: Try the Swift Career Accelerator today! >>

++ and -- are deprecated

Available from Swift 2.2

Paul Hudson      @twostraws

Swift 2.2 formally deprecates the ++ and -- operators, which means they still work but you'll get a warning when you use them. Deprecation is usually a first step towards removing something entirely, and in this case both of these operators will be removed in Swift 3.0.

In their place, you need to use += 1 and -= 1 instead. These operators have been there all along, and are not going away.

You might wonder why two long-standing operators are being removed, particularly when they exist in C, C#, Java, and – critically to its "joke" – C++. There are several answers, not least:

  1. Writing ++ rather than += 1 is hardly a dramatic time saving
  2. Although it's easy once you know it, ++ doesn't have an obvious meaning to people learning Swift, whereas += at least reads as "add and assign."
  3. C-style loops – one of the most common situations where ++ and -- were used – have also been deprecated, which brings me on to my next point…
Hacking with Swift is sponsored by Essential Developer.

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 February 9th.

Click to save your free spot now

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

Other changes in Swift 2.2…

Download all Swift 2.2 changes as a playground Link to Swift 2.2 changes

Browse changes in all Swift versions

 
Unknown user

You are not logged in

Log in or create account
 

Link copied to your pasteboard.