Contents

init(reflecting:)

Creates a string with a detailed representation of the given value, suitable for debugging.

Declaration

init<Subject>(reflecting subject: Subject)

Discussion

Use this initializer to convert an instance of any type to its custom debugging representation. The initializer creates the string representation of instance in one of the following ways, depending on its protocol conformance:

  • If subject conforms to the CustomDebugStringConvertible protocol, the result is subject.debugDescription.

  • If subject conforms to the CustomStringConvertible protocol, the result is subject.description.

  • If subject conforms to the TextOutputStreamable protocol, the result is obtained by calling subject.write(to: s) on an empty string s.

  • An unspecified result is supplied automatically by the Swift standard library.

For example, this custom Point struct uses the default representation supplied by the standard library.

struct Point {
    let x: Int, y: Int
}

let p = Point(x: 21, y: 30)
print(String(reflecting: p))
// Prints "p: Point = {
//           x = 21
//           y = 30
//         }"

After adding CustomDebugStringConvertible conformance by implementing the debugDescription property, Point provides its own custom debugging representation.

extension Point: CustomDebugStringConvertible {
    var debugDescription: String {
        return "Point(x: \(x), y: \(y))"
    }
}

print(String(reflecting: p))
// Prints "Point(x: 21, y: 30)"

See Also

Converting Other Types to Strings