How to provide a localized description with an Error type in Swift?

I am defining a custom error type with Swift 3 syntax and I want to provide a user-friendly description of the error which is returned by the localizedDescription property of the Error object. How can I do it?

public enum MyError: Error {
  case customError
  
  var localizedDescription: String {
    switch self {
    case .customError:
      return NSLocalizedString("A user-friendly description of the error.", comment: "My error")
    }
  }
}

let error: Error = MyError.customError
error.localizedDescription
// "The operation couldn’t be completed. (MyError error 0.)"

Is there a way for the localizedDescription to return my custom error description ("A user-friendly description of the error.")? Note that the error object here is of type Error and not MyError. I can, of course, cast the object to MyError

(error as? MyError)?.localizedDescription

but is there a way to make it work without casting to my error type?

As described in the Xcode 8 beta 6 release notes,

> Swift-defined error types can provide localized error descriptions by adopting the new LocalizedError protocol.

In your case:

public enum MyError: Error {
    case customError
}

extension MyError: LocalizedError {
    public var errorDescription: String? {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return NSLocalizedString("A user-friendly description of the error.", comment: "My error")
        }
    }
}

let error: Error = MyError.customError
print(error.localizedDescription) // A user-friendly description of the error.

You can provide even more information if the error is converted to NSError (which is always possible):

extension MyError : LocalizedError {
    public var errorDescription: String? {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return NSLocalizedString("I failed.", comment: "")
        }
    }
    public var failureReason: String? {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return NSLocalizedString("I don't know why.", comment: "")
        }
    }
    public var recoverySuggestion: String? {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return NSLocalizedString("Switch it off and on again.", comment: "")
        }
    }
}

let error = MyError.customError as NSError
print(error.localizedDescription)        // I failed.
print(error.localizedFailureReason)      // Optional("I don\'t know why.")
print(error.localizedRecoverySuggestion) // Optional("Switch it off and on again.")

By adopting the CustomNSError protocol the error can provide a userInfo dictionary (and also a domain and code). Example:

extension MyError: CustomNSError {

    public static var errorDomain: String {
        return "myDomain"
    }
    
    public var errorCode: Int {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return 999
        }
    }

    public var errorUserInfo: [String : Any] {
        switch self {
        case .customError:
            return [ "line": 13]
        }
    }
}

let error = MyError.customError as NSError

if let line = error.userInfo["line"] as? Int {
    print("Error in line", line) // Error in line 13
}

print(error.code) // 999
print(error.domain) // myDomain

I would also add, if your error has parameters like this

enum NetworkError: LocalizedError {
  case responseStatusError(status: Int, message: String)
}

you can call these parameters in your localized description like this:

extension NetworkError {
  public var errorDescription: String? {
    switch self {
    case .responseStatusError(status: let status, message: let message):
      return "Error with status \(status) and message \(message) was thrown"
  }
}

You can even make this shorter like this:

extension NetworkError {
  public var errorDescription: String? {
    switch self {
    case let .responseStatusError(status, message):
      return "Error with status \(status) and message \(message) was thrown"
  }
}

There are now two Error-adopting protocols that your error type can adopt in order to provide additional information to Objective-C — LocalizedError and CustomNSError. Here's an example error that adopts both of them:

enum MyBetterError : CustomNSError, LocalizedError {
    case oops

    // domain
    static var errorDomain : String { return "MyDomain" }
    // code
    var errorCode : Int { return -666 }
    // userInfo
    var errorUserInfo: [String : Any] { return ["Hey":"Ho"] };
    
    // localizedDescription
    var errorDescription: String? { return "This sucks" }
    // localizedFailureReason
    var failureReason: String? { return "Because it sucks" }
    // localizedRecoverySuggestion
    var recoverySuggestion: String? { return "Give up" }

}

Using a struct can be an alternative. A little bit elegance with static localization:

import Foundation

struct MyError: LocalizedError, Equatable {
   
   private var description: String!
   
   init(description: String) {
       self.description = description
   }
   
   var errorDescription: String? {
       return description
   }
   
   public static func ==(lhs: MyError, rhs: MyError) -> Bool {
       return lhs.description == rhs.description
   }
}

extension MyError {
  
   static let noConnection = MyError(description: NSLocalizedString("No internet connection",comment: ""))
   static let requestFailed = MyError(description: NSLocalizedString("Request failed",comment: ""))
}

func throwNoConnectionError() throws {
   throw MyError.noConnection
}

do {
   try throwNoConnectionError()
}
catch let myError as MyError {
   switch myError {
   case .noConnection:
       print("noConnection: \(myError.localizedDescription)")
   case .requestFailed:
       print("requestFailed: \(myError.localizedDescription)")
   default:
      print("default: \(myError.localizedDescription)")
   }
}

This one worked for me:

NSError(domain: "com.your", code: 0, userInfo: [NSLocalizedDescriptionKey: "Error description"])

Here is more elegant solution:

  enum ApiError: String, LocalizedError {

    case invalidCredentials = "Invalid credentials"
    case noConnection = "No connection"

    var localizedDescription: String { return NSLocalizedString(self.rawValue, comment: "") }

  }