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iOS Swift Functions and Optionals Optionals What is an Optional?

Zachary Goforth
Zachary Goforth
748 Points

How do I modify the 'search' function to return an optional instead of just a String in Challenge Task 1?

I just learned optionals and obviously they want me to use one. After looking back at the code from the video these are my two guesses...

1)let names = search(name: "Snow White") names! 2) if let names = search(name: "Snow White") { println("Snow White") }

The reason I'm using "Snow White" is because when I put the code above in it tells me that since "Snow White" can't be found it should print nil... somehow. Optionals and nil make sense, but for me it's translating that into this task is where I'm lost.

search.swift
func search(#name: String) -> String {
    let names = ["Doc","Grumpy","Happy","Sleepy","Bashful","Sneezy","Dopey"]
    for n in names {
        if n == name {
            return n
        }
    }
    return ""
}

1 Answer

Hi, my best guess would be this:

func search(#name: String) -> String? {
    let names = ["Doc","Grumpy","Happy","Sleepy","Bashful","Sneezy","Dopey"]
    for n in names {
        if n == name {
            return n
        }
    }
    return nil
}

so basically you set the return parameter to optional by adding the ? suffix. Then modify the return to nil if no name is found

Zachary Goforth
Zachary Goforth
748 Points

These challenges are always easier than I think. I'll give it a try.