I have the following function which reads some heart rate data and accepts a callback in the form of a closure, as such:
func readHeartRate(callback: ((samples: [HKQuantitySample]?, average: Double?, error: NSError!) -> Void)!){
// ...
// ERROR - call the callback with no samples or average
callback(samples: nil, average: nil, error: error)
})
Right now, I'm explicitly passing back nil for samples and average to the callback.
However, since samples and error are optional, and since I declared the names in the closure explicitly, I thought this would be possible, instead:
callback(error: error)
However, when I do this xcode complains and throws the error:
Missing argument for parameter 'samples' in call
Is there a way to call the callback with only the values necessary to avoid cluttering my code?
From The Swift Programming Language:
Closure expression syntax can use constant parameters, variable parameters, and inout parameters. Default values cannot be provided. Variadic parameters can be used if you name the variadic parameter and place it last in the parameter list.
So only way to be able to call closure with variable number of specified parameters is by using variadic params, which - I assume - is not what you want.
For a regular method, you can provide a default value for a parameter:
func myCallback(#error: NSError!, samples: [HKQuantitySample]? = nil, average: Double? = nil) {
}
myCallback(error: nil)
These parameters with default values should be at the end of the argument list.
This doesn't work in your case, since you're not defining a method; you're just specifying the method signature that callers need to pass in for the callback. You can say "pass in a method that takes an Int", for example, but there's no way currently to say "pass in a method that takes an Int and uses a default of 0 if I don't pass anything in".
Remember, optional values just mean the existence of a value is optional and the thing can be nil.
I have had occasions where I decided to wrap a closure in a function so that I could provide a default parameter. It works like this:
let myClosure: String -> () = { string in
println(string)
}
func myFunc(string: String = "default") {
myClosure(string)
}
myFunc() // prints "default"
I know that your goal is to "declutter" your code, so whether or not writing wrapper functions is what you want, I don't know, but it works.
Related
In the book, "Swift Programming Language 3.0", it mentioned that types of closure include:
Global functions are closures that have a name and do not capture
any values
Nested function are closures that have a name and can
capture values from their enclosing function
Closure expression are
unnamed closure written in a lightweight syntax that can capture
values from their surrounding context
I was just wondering does a function that exist in class scope count as a closure? One can certainly pass around such function as an argument to other function, but is it a closure?
Yes! Absolutely! Here's an example that uses the lowercased() method of String.
let aClosure: (String) -> () -> String = String.lowercased
let anUpperCasedString = "A B C"
print(anUpperCasedString)
let aLowerCaseString = aClosure(anUpperCasedString)()
print(aLowerCaseString)
You can see that the type of this closure is (String) -> () -> String. This is because String.lowercased is completely unapplied, it has no clue what instance it's operating on.
Calling aClosure(anUpperCasedString) will return a closure that's now () -> String. Baked into it is the instance it'll operate on. Only when you call this new closure with no params (()), will it actually execute the body of lowercased(), operating on the instance you gave it in the previous step, and return you the String result.
As a consequence, this is also valid:
let aLowerCaseString = String.lowercased("QWERTY")()
It just does all the steps above in one inlined step.
This technique is called function currying. This post talks more about this technique (called function currying) as it applies to instance methods in Swift.
I wrote a function that takes a non-optional String as a parameter.
I declared a variable property of type String, which is also not an optional.
When I try to call my function with this property as an argument, I get the following error.
Cannot invoke 'localesForCountryCode' with an argument list of type '(String)'
Notice that the error lists the type as '(String)' not 'String'. What do the parens signify? I thought they meant that the type was optional, but nothing is declared as an optional anywhere.
My Function (An extension of NSLocale):
func localesForCountryCode(countryCode: String) -> [NSLocale] {
let localeIdentifiers = localeIdentifiersForCountryCode(countryCode)
var locales = [NSLocale]()
for localeIdentifier in localeIdentifiers {
let localeForIdentifier = NSLocale(localeIdentifier: localeIdentifier)
locales.append(localeForIdentifier)
}
return locales
}
Code That Calls My Function
let currentCountryCode = "US"
var localesForCurrentCountry = [NSLocale]()
func updateWithNewLocation(newLocation: CLLocation) {
geoCoder.reverseGeocodeLocation(newLocation, completionHandler: { (placemarks, error) -> Void in
if placemarks.count > 0 {
let placemark = placemarks.first as! CLPlacemark
self.currentCountry = placemark.country
self.localesForCurrentCountry = NSLocale.localesForCountryCode(self.currentCountryCode)
}
})
}
Update 1
When I move my function code from the NSLocale extension to the view controller from which I am calling the function, the error goes away. Any ideas why this may be the case? Absolutely no changes to the function were made.
Update 2
I continue to run into this problem. The following is another example. Again, it seems to happen only when a function is called as a class method.
I was rereading your question and realized that your question is not really your question. Your problem has nothing to do with parentheses (see below about why). You're just calling the wrong method. NSDateComponentsFormatter is a class. stringFromTimeInterval() is an instance method. You have to crate an actual date formatter to work with. If you want a default one, you can do this:
return NSDateComponentsFormatter().stringFromTimeInterval(unwrappedTimespan)
Note the extra set of parentheses. Your probably don't want the default one, though. You probably want to configure one. See Date Formatters for an introduction to that topic. Note that date formatters can be pretty expensive to create, so you usually want to reuse them.
You're doing the same thing with localesForCountryCode. This is an instance method, not a class method. You have to create an NSLocale first.
This does open up an interesting topic, though. Why does NSDateComponentsFormatter.stringFromTimeInterval() act like a function that you're just passing the wrong arguments to? Why doesn't it say "hey, you're calling a class method?" It's because it is a function that you're just passing the wrong arguments to.
Every method is really just a curried function that takes the target object as the first parameter. See Ole Begemann's quick intro to the topic: Instance Methods are Curried Functions in Swift.
Some more on your explicit question about parentheses:
As others have noted, a (String) is a one-tuple of String. The important point is that in Swift, any type is trivially convertible to a one-tuple of that type, so the extra parentheses here are unimportant. There is no meaningful distinction between String and (String) in Swift.
All Swift functions technically take one value and return one value. So one can correctly think of:
func f(x: Int, y: Int) -> Int
as a function that takes a tuple (Int,y:Int) and returns an Int (or possibly (Int); I believe Swift actually does the former, though). This is subtly connected to how currying works in Swift. In a simpler case:
func f(x: Int)
This is a function that technically takes (Int) and returns (). That's why sometimes you will see (Type) show up in error messages. But it is not a meaningful distinction.
String - it's simple String type.
But (String) - it's a compound type called Tuple.
That means you passing to you function Tuple, not String.
A compound type is a type without a name, defined in the Swift language itself. There are two compound types: function types and tuple types. A compound type may contain named types and other compound types. For instance, the tuple type (Int, (Int, Int)) contains two elements: The first is the named type Int, and the second is another compound type (Int, Int).
In general the error message says (String) because that is the tuple / list of parameters. If you method would expect a String and afterwards an Int an error message might mention (String, paramName: Int)
So basically so far everything looks fine. You need to show us the code for us to be able to fix your exact problem. Because String and (String) normally should match in the given scenario.
Consider the following example:
func k (a:String, b:Int) {}
k(12, b:"123")
which will cause the error
Cannot invoke 'k' with an argument list of type (Int, b:String)
While
k("12", b:123)
does what you would expect.
I try to understand the main concept of callbacks in swift
I have the following code:
typealias ImageHandler = (String,NSError?) -> Void
func PostOnSocialMedia(image:String?){
println(0)
Post({(image)->Void in
println(1)
})
println(2)
}
func Post(handler:ImageHandler){
println(3)
}
my code output is 0,3,2 and my question is why doesn't print the number 1.
It’s not printing 1 because you are passing in a function that is never called.
This:
Post({ (image)->Void in
println(1)
})
declares a temporary function (a “closure expression” – a quick easy way to declare anonymous functions, between the { }) that takes an argument of a (String,NSError?) pair, and returns nothing. Then it passes that function into the Post function.
But the Post function does nothing with it. For a function to run, it needs to be called. If you changed your Post function like so:
func Post(handler:ImageHandler){
println(3)
// call the handler that was passed in...
handler("blah",nil)
}
you’ll see it printing a 1.
Note, the image argument received by PostOnSocialMedia and the image argument variable inside the temporary function are two different variables – scoping rules mean the one declared inside the temp function masks the one in the outer scope. But they are very different (in fact, they’re different types – one is a string, and the other is a 2-tuple of a string and an error).
Try reading this for a short intro on first-order functions and closures in Swift.
func say(name:String, msg:String) {
println("\(name) say \(msg)")
}
say("Henry","Hi,Swift") <---- error because missing argument label 'msg' in call
I need to use
say("Henry",msg:"Hi,Swift")
Why ? If I put more than two var in func so that I need to write var name instead of first var when I call this func
It's really trouble, and I don't see any explain in iBook Swift tutorial.
One possible reason is that it is actually a method. Methods are very sneaky, they look just like regular functions, but they don't act the same way, let's look at this:
func funFunction(someArg: Int, someOtherArg: Int) {
println("funFunction: \(someArg) : \(someOtherArg)")
}
// No external parameter
funFunction(1, 4)
func externalParamFunction(externalOne internalOne: Int, externalTwo internalTwo: Int) {
println("externalParamFunction: \(internalOne) : \(internalTwo)")
}
// Requires external parameters
externalParamFunction(externalOne: 1, externalTwo: 4)
func externalInternalShared(#paramOne: Int, #paramTwo: Int) {
println("externalInternalShared: \(paramOne) : \(paramTwo)")
}
// The '#' basically says, you want your internal and external names to be the same
// Note that there's been an update in Swift 2 and the above function would have to be written as:
func externalInternalShared(paramOne paramOne: Int, #paramTwo: Int) {
print("externalInternalShared: \(paramOne) : \(paramTwo)")
}
externalInternalShared(paramOne: 1, paramTwo: 4)
Now here's the fun part, declare a function inside of a class and it's no longer a function ... it's a method
class SomeClass {
func someClassFunctionWithParamOne(paramOne: Int, paramTwo: Int) {
println("someClassFunction: \(paramOne) : \(paramTwo)")
}
}
var someInstance = SomeClass()
someInstance.someClassFunctionWithParamOne(1, paramTwo: 4)
This is part of the design of behavior for methods
Apple Docs:
Specifically, Swift gives the first parameter name in a method a local parameter name by default, and gives the second and subsequent parameter names both local and external parameter names by default. This convention matches the typical naming and calling convention you will be familiar with from writing Objective-C methods, and makes for expressive method calls without the need to qualify your parameter names.
Notice the autocomplete:
This is simply an influence of the Objective-C language. When calling a method, the first parameter of a method does not need to be explicitly labelled (as in Objective-C it is effectively 'labelled' by the name of the method). However all following parameters DO need a name to identify them. They may also take an (optional) local name for use inside the method itself (see Jiaaro's link in the comments above).
Simple:
Wrong call function syntax's( its not same in c/c++/java/c#)
Incorrect:
say("Henry")
Correct:
say(name:"Henry")
PS: You must always! add "name function parameter" before value.
Swift 3.0 update:
In swift 3.0, methods with one param name per inputs are required to have that param name as part of the function call. So if you define the function like this
func say(name:String, msg:String) {
print("\(name) say \(msg)")
}
Your function call will have to be like this
self.say(name: "Henry",msg: "Hi,Swift")
If you want to have English like readable function labels but do not want to change input param name, you can add the label in front of the parameter names, like this
func say(somethingBy name:String, whoIsActuallySaying msg:String) {
print("\(name) say \(msg)")
}
Then calling it like this
self.say(somethingBy: "Henry",whoIsActuallySaying: "Hi,Swift")
This is a quirk in the compiler. Functions (which are not members of a class) and class methods have different default behavior with regards to named parameters. This is consistent with the behavior of named parameters in objective-C (but makes no sense for someone new to swift with no experience with objective-C).
Here's what the language reference has to say about named parameters for functions (specifically parameters where an external name for the parameter is not given, and the parameter does not have a default value)
However, these parameter names are only used within the body of the
function itself, and cannot be used when calling the function. These
kinds of parameter names are known as local parameter names, because
they are only available for use within the function’s body.
For information about class methods, see Logan's answer.
Please find the small code for understanding in swift 3+.
func sumInt(a:Int,b:Int){
print(a+b) // Displays 3 here
}
sumInt(a: 1, b: 2) // not like in other languages
The filepath.Walk function takes a function callback. This is straight function with no context pointer. Surely a major use case for Walk is to walk a directory and take some action based on it, with reference to a wider context (e.g. entering each file into a table).
If I were writing this in C# I would use an object (with fields that could point back to the objects in the context) as a callback (with a given callback method) on it so the object can encapsulate the context that Walk is called from.
(EDIT: user "usr" suggests that the closure method occurs in C# too)
If I were writing this in C I'd ask for a function and a context pointer as a void * so the function has a context pointer that it can pass into the Walk function and get that passed through to the callback function.
But Go only has the function argument and no obvious context pointer argument.
(If I'd designed this function I would have taken an object as a callback rather than a function, conforming to the interface FileWalkerCallback or whatever, and put a callback(...) method on that interface. The consumer could then attach whatever context to the object before passing it to Walk.)
The only way I can think of doing it is by capturing the closure of the outer function in the callback function. Here is how I am using it:
func ScanAllFiles(location string, myStorageThing *StorageThing) (err error) {
numScanned = 0
// Wrap this up in this function's closure to capture the `corpus` binding.
var scan = func(path string, fileInfo os.FileInfo, inpErr error) (err error) {
numScanned ++
myStorageThing.DoSomething(path)
}
fmt.Println("Scan All")
err = filepath.Walk(location, scan)
fmt.Println("Total scanned", numScanned)
return
}
In this example I create the callback function so its closure contains the variables numScanned and myStorageThing.
This feels wrong to me. Am I right to think it feels weird, or am I just getting used to writing Go? How is it intended for the filepath.Walk method to be used in such a way that the callback has a reference to a wider context?
You're doing it about right. There are two little variations you might consider. One is that you can replace the name of an unused parameter with an underbar. So, in your example where you only used the path, the signature could read
func(path string, _ os.FileInfo, _ error) error
It saves a little typing, cleans up the code a little, and makes it clear that you are not using the parameter. Also, for small functions especially, it's common skip assigning the function literal to a variable, and just use it directly as the argument. Your code ends up reading,
err = filepath.Walk(location, func(path string, _ os.FileInfo, _ error) error {
numScanned ++
myStorageThing.DoSomething(path)
})
This cleans up scoping a little, making it clear that you are using the closure just once.
As a C# programmer I can say that this is exactly how such an API in .NET would be meant to be used. You would be encouraged to use closures and discouraged to create an explicit class with fields because it just wastes your time.
As Go supports closures I'd say this is the right way to use this API. I don't see anything wrong with it.