withUnsafeBytes(_:)

Declaration

func withUnsafeBytes<R>(_ body: (UnsafeRawBufferPointer) throws -> R) rethrows -> R

Parameters

• body:

  A closure with an UnsafeRawBufferPointer parameter that points to the contiguous storage for the array. If no such storage exists, it is created. If body has a return value, that value is also used as the return value for the withUnsafeBytes(_:) method. The argument is valid only for the duration of the closure’s execution.

Return Value

The return value, if any, of the body closure parameter.

Discussion

The array’s Element type must be a trivial type, which can be copied with just a bit-for-bit copy without any indirection or reference-counting operations. Generally, native Swift types that do not contain strong or weak references are trivial, as are imported C structs and enums.

The following example copies the bytes of the numbers array into a buffer of UInt8:

var numbers: [Int32] = [1, 2, 3]
var byteBuffer: [UInt8] = []
numbers.withUnsafeBytes {
    byteBuffer.append(contentsOf: $0)
}
// byteBuffer == [1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0]