Swift `in` keyword meaning?

IosSwiftKeyword

Ios Problem Overview


I am trying to implement some code from parse.com and I notice a keyword in after the void.

I am stumped what is this ? The second line you see the Void in

PFUser.logInWithUsernameInBackground("myname", password:"mypass") {
  (user: PFUser?, error: NSError?) -> Void in
  if user != nil {
    // Do stuff after successful login.
  } else {
    // The login failed. Check error to see why.
  }
}

The docs don't document this. I know the in keyword is used in for loops.

Anyone confirm?

Ios Solutions


Solution 1 - Ios

In a named function, we declare the parameters and return type in the func declaration line.

func say(s:String)->() {
    // body
}

In an anonymous function, there is no func declaration line - it's anonymous! So we do it with an in line at the start of the body instead.

{
    (s:String)->() in
    // body
}

(That is the full form of an anonymous function. But then Swift has a series of rules allowing the return type, the parameter types, and even the parameter names and the whole in line to be omitted under certain circumstances.)

Solution 2 - Ios

Closure expression syntax has the following general form:

Closure Expression Syntax

Solution 3 - Ios

The question of what purpose in serves has been well-answered by other users here; in summary: in is a keyword defined in the Swift closure syntax as a separator between the function type and the function body in a closure:

> { /parameters and type/ in /function body/ }

But for those who might be wondering "but why specifically the keyword in?", here's a bit of history shared by Joe Groff, Senior Swift Compiler Engineer at Apple, on the Swift forums:

> It's my fault, sorry. In the early days of Swift, we had a closure > syntax that was very similar to traditional Javascript: > > func (arg: -> Type, arg: Type) -> Return { ... } > > While this is nice and regular syntax, it is of course also very bulky > and awkward if you're trying to support expressive functional APIs, > such as map/filter on collections, or if you want libraries to be able > to provide closure-based APIs that feel like extensions of the > language. > > Our earliest adopters at Apple complained about this, and mandated > that we support Ruby-style trailing closure syntax. This is tricky to > fit into a C-style syntax like Swift's, and we tried many different > iterations, including literally Ruby's {|args| } syntax, but many of > them suffered from ambiguities or simply distaste and revolt from our > early adopters. We wanted something that still looked like other parts > of the language, but which could be parsed unambiguously and could > span the breadth of use cases from a fully explicit function signature > to extremely compact. > > We had already taken in as a keyword, we couldn't use -> like Java > does because it's already used to denote the return type, and we were > concerned that using => like C# would be too visually confusing. in > made xs.map { x in f(x) } look vaguely like for x in xs { f(x) }, > and people hated it less than the alternatives.

*Formatting and emphasis mine. And thanks to Nikita Belov's post on the Swift forums for helping my own understanding.

Solution 4 - Ios

> The start of the closure’s body is introduced by the in keyword. This > keyword indicates that the definition of the closure’s parameters and > return type has finished, and the body of the closure is about to > begin.

Source: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/Closures.html

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