---
title: "init(decoding:)"
framework: swift
role: symbol
role_heading: Initializer
path: "swift/string/init(decoding:)-9xh58"
---

# init(decoding:)

Creates a string by interpreting the path component’s content as UTF-8 on Unix and UTF-16 on Windows.

## Declaration

```swift
init(decoding component: FilePath.Component)
```

## Parameters

- `component`: The path component to be interpreted as CInterop.PlatformUnicodeEncoding.

## Discussion

Discussion If the content of the path component isn’t a well-formed Unicode string, this initializer replaces invalid bytes with U+FFFD. This means that, depending on the semantics of the specific file system, conversion to a string and back to a path component might result in a value that’s different from the original path component.