Get nth character of a string in Swift programming

Question

How can I get the nth character of a string? I tried bracket([]) accessor with no luck.

var string = "Hello, world!"

var firstChar = string[0] // Throws error

ERROR: 'subscript' is unavailable: cannot subscript String with an Int, see the documentation comment for discussion

Answer 1

I just had the same issue. Simply do this:

var aString: String = "test"
var aChar:unichar = (aString as NSString).characterAtIndex(0)

Answer 2

Swift 3

extension String {

    public func charAt(_ i: Int) -> Character {
        return self[self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: i)]
    }

    public subscript (i: Int) -> String {
        return String(self.charAt(i) as Character)
    }

    public subscript (r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        return substring(with: self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)..<self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound))
    }

    public subscript (r: CountableClosedRange<Int>) -> String {
        return substring(with: self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)..<self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound))
    }

}

Usage

let str = "Hello World"
let sub = str[0...4]

Helpful Programming Tips and Tricks (written by me)

Answer 3

Update for swift 2.0 subString

public extension String {
    public subscript (i: Int) -> String {
        return self.substringWithRange(self.startIndex..<self.startIndex.advancedBy(i + 1))
    }

    public subscript (r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        get {
            return self.substringWithRange(self.startIndex.advancedBy(r.startIndex)..<self.startIndex.advancedBy(r.endIndex))
        }
    }

}

Answer 4

Swift3

You can use subscript syntax to access the Character at a particular String index.

let greeting = "Guten Tag!"
let index = greeting.index(greeting.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)
greeting[index] // a

Visit https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/StringsAndCharacters.html

or we can do a String Extension in Swift 4

extension String {
    func getCharAtIndex(_ index: Int) -> Character {
        return self[self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: index)]
    }
}

USAGE:

let foo = "ABC123"
foo.getCharAtIndex(2) //C

Answer 5

A python-like solution, which allows you to use negative index,

var str = "Hello world!"
str[-1]        // "!"

could be:

extension String {
    subscript (var index:Int)->Character{
        get {
            let n = distance(self.startIndex, self.endIndex)
            index %= n
            if index < 0 { index += n }
            return self[advance(startIndex, index)]
        }
    }
}

By the way, it may be worth it to transpose the whole python's slice notation

Answer 6

Swift 2.2 Solution:

The following extension works in Xcode 7, this is a combination of this solution and Swift 2.0 syntax conversion.

extension String {
    subscript(integerIndex: Int) -> Character {
        let index = startIndex.advancedBy(integerIndex)
        return self[index]
    }

    subscript(integerRange: Range<Int>) -> String {
        let start = startIndex.advancedBy(integerRange.startIndex)
        let end = startIndex.advancedBy(integerRange.endIndex)
        let range = start..<end
        return self[range]
    }
}