iOS Swift coordinates function returns nil - ios

Question

I'm working on a function to convert a city (string) to coordinates. However, when I call the function I get "(0.0, 0.0)" as a result. It should be the latitude and longitude.
Please help me out. Thanks!
This is the function
func getCoordinates(huidigeLocatie: String) -> (lat: CLLocationDegrees, long: CLLocationDegrees) {
var lat:CLLocationDegrees
var long:CLLocationDegrees
var geocoderHuidigeLocatie = CLGeocoder()
geocoderHuidigeLocatie.geocodeAddressString(huidigeLocatie, completionHandler:
{(placemarks: [AnyObject]!, error: NSError!) in
if error != nil {
println("Geocode failed with error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
} else if placemarks.count > 0 {
let placemark = placemarks[0] as CLPlacemark
let location = placemark.location
var lat = location.coordinate.latitude
var long = location.coordinate.longitude
}
})
return (lat: CLLocationDegrees(), long: CLLocationDegrees())
}

Answer 1

There are two issues here:
You want to return the actual lat and long variables, not CLLocationDegrees().
A more subtle issue is that you're calling a function that returns its results asynchronously, so you cannot return the values immediately. Instead, you might employ your own completionHandler pattern.
For example:
func getCoordinates(huidigeLocatie: String, completionHandler: (lat: CLLocationDegrees!, long: CLLocationDegrees!, error: NSError?) -> ()) -> Void {
var lat:CLLocationDegrees
var long:CLLocationDegrees
var geocoderHuidigeLocatie = CLGeocoder()
geocoderHuidigeLocatie.geocodeAddressString(huidigeLocatie) { (placemarks: [AnyObject]!, error: NSError!) in
if error != nil {
println("Geocode failed with error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
completionHandler(lat: nil, long: nil, error: error)
} else if placemarks.count > 0 {
let placemark = placemarks[0] as CLPlacemark
let location = placemark.location
let lat = location.coordinate.latitude
let long = location.coordinate.longitude
completionHandler(lat: lat, long: long, error: nil)
}
}
}
And you'd call it like so:
getCoordinates(string) { lat, long, error in
if error != nil {
// handle the error here
} else {
// use lat, long here
}
}
// but not here

Answer 2

You should return (lat: lat, long: long).