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

Swift 2.0 as of Xcode 7 GM Seed

var text = "Hello, world!"

let firstChar = text[text.startIndex.advancedBy(0)] // "H"

For the nth character, replace 0 with n-1.

Edit: Swift 3.0

text[text.index(text.startIndex, offsetBy: 0)]

n.b. there are simpler ways of grabbing certain characters in the string

e.g. let firstChar = text.characters.first

Answer 2

If you see Cannot subscript a value of type 'String'... use this extension:

Swift 3

extension String {
    subscript (i: Int) -> Character {
        return self[self.characters.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: i)]
    }

    subscript (i: Int) -> String {
        return String(self[i] as Character)
    }

    subscript (r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound)
        return self[start..<end]
    }

    subscript (r: ClosedRange<Int>) -> String {
        let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound)
        return self[start...end]
    }
}

Swift 2.3

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

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

Source: http://oleb.net/blog/2014/07/swift-strings/

Answer 3

Swift 4.1 or later

You can extend Swift 4's StringProtocol to make the subscript available also to the substrings. Note: Due to proposal SE-0191 the extension constrain to IndexDistance == Int can be removed:

extension StringProtocol {

    subscript(offset: Int) -> Element {
        return self[index(startIndex, offsetBy: offset)]
    }

    subscript(_ range: CountableRange<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        return prefix(range.lowerBound + range.count)
            .suffix(range.count)
    }
    subscript(range: CountableClosedRange<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        return prefix(range.lowerBound + range.count)
            .suffix(range.count)
    }

    subscript(range: PartialRangeThrough<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        return prefix(range.upperBound.advanced(by: 1))
    }
    subscript(range: PartialRangeUpTo<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        return prefix(range.upperBound)
    }
    subscript(range: PartialRangeFrom<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        return suffix(Swift.max(0, count - range.lowerBound))
    }
}
extension Substring {
    var string: String { return String(self) }
}    

---

extension BidirectionalCollection {
    subscript(safe offset: Int) -> Element? {
        guard !isEmpty, let i = index(startIndex, offsetBy: offset, limitedBy: index(before: endIndex)) else { return nil }
        return self[i]
    }
}

---

Testing

let test = "Hello USA                                                                     

                                                        
            

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Answer 4

In Swift 3 without extensions to the String class, as simple as I can make it!

let myString = "abcedfg"
let characterLocationIndex = myString.index(myString.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
let myCharacter = myString[characterLocationIndex]

myCharacter is "3" in this example.

Answer 5

Swift 4.2 and earlier

let str = "abcdef"
str[1 ..< 3] // returns "bc"
str[5] // returns "f"
str[80] // returns ""
str.substring(fromIndex: 3) // returns "def"
str.substring(toIndex: str.length - 2) // returns "abcd"

---

You will need to add this String extension to your project (it's fully tested):

extension String {

  var length: Int {
    return count
  }

  subscript (i: Int) -> String {
    return self[i ..< i + 1]
  }

  func substring(fromIndex: Int) -> String {
    return self[min(fromIndex, length) ..< length]
  }

  func substring(toIndex: Int) -> String {
    return self[0 ..< max(0, toIndex)]
  }

  subscript (r: Range<Int>) -> String {
    let range = Range(uncheckedBounds: (lower: max(0, min(length, r.lowerBound)),
                                        upper: min(length, max(0, r.upperBound))))
    let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: range.lowerBound)
    let end = index(start, offsetBy: range.upperBound - range.lowerBound)
    return String(self[start ..< end])
  }

}

---

Even though Swift always had out of the box solution to this problem (without String extension, which I provided below), I still would strongly recommend using the extension. Why? Because it saved me tens of hours of painful migration from early versions of Swift, where String's syntax was changing almost every release, but all I needed to do was to update the extension's implementation as opposed to refactoring the entire 300k lines-of-code production app. Make your choice.

let str = "Hello, world!"
let index = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 4)
str[index] // returns Character 'o'

let endIndex = str.index(str.endIndex, offsetBy:-2)
str[index ..< endIndex] // returns String "o, worl"

String(str.suffix(from: index)) // returns String "o, world!"
String(str.prefix(upTo: index)) // returns String "Hell"

Answer 6

Swift 4

let str = "My String"

String at index

let index = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
String(str[index])    // "S"

Substring

let startIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
let endIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)
String(str[startIndex...endIndex])     // "Strin"

First n chars

let startIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
String(str[..<startIndex])    // "My "

Last n chars

let startIndex = str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)
String(str[startIndex...])    // "String"

---

Swift 2 and 3

str = "My String"

**String At Index **

Swift 2

let charAtIndex = String(str[str.startIndex.advancedBy(3)])  // charAtIndex = "S"

Swift 3

str[str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)]

SubString fromIndex toIndex

Swift 2

let subStr = str[str.startIndex.advancedBy(3)...str.startIndex.advancedBy(7)] // subStr = "Strin"

Swift 3

str[str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 3)...str.index(str.startIndex, offsetBy: 7)]

First n chars

let first2Chars = String(str.characters.prefix(2)) // first2Chars = "My"

Last n chars

let last3Chars = String(str.characters.suffix(3)) // last3Chars = "ing"