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iOS

Bryan Beasman
Bryan Beasman
3,435 Points

Swift: Do Classes NEED initializer methods?

Hello,

I recently finished the Object Oriented Swift course in the Beginner iOS Development track. So, I know with Structs a member wise initializer method is created for you but with a class you have to manually build one. My question is, if your stored properties all have default values, do you even need to build an initializer method? For example:

class Flashlight { var isOn: Bool = false

func turnFlashlight(_ key: String) {
    if key == "on" {
        isOn = true
    } else if key == "off" {
        isOn = false
    } else {
        print("Error: You cannot turn a flashlight \(key)")
    }
}

}

The above code runs just fine for me, but it does not include an initializer. Now look at this code:

class Flashlight { var isOn: Bool

init() {
    isOn = false
}

func turnFlashlight(_ key: String) {
    if key == "on" {
        isOn = true
    } else if key == "off" {
        isOn = false
    } else {
        print("Error: You cannot turn a flashlight \(key)")
    }
}

}

The code above includes an initializer to set my stored property. I get the same results.

Which is best practice? Should I always use an initializer? Or can I omit it in cases like this? I want to follow best practice.

Bryan Beasman
Bryan Beasman
3,435 Points

Also, some of my code appears to show up outside of the code area in this discussion.

1 Answer

Thomas Dobson
Thomas Dobson
7,511 Points

Bryan,

According to apple documentation:

Swift provides a default initializer for any structure or class that provides default values for all of its properties and does not provide at least one initializer itself. The default initializer simply creates a new instance with all of its properties set to their default values.

I might recommend reading the Initalization Docs