Check for class existence in Swift - ios

Question

I want to use NSURLQueryItem in my Swift iOS app. However, that class is only available since iOS 8, but my app should also run on iOS 7. How would I check for class existence in Swift?
In Objective-C you would do something like:
if ([NSURLQueryItem class]) {
// Use NSURLQueryItem class
} else {
// NSURLQueryItem is not available
}
Related to this question is: How do you check for method or property existence of an existing class?
There is a nice section in https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/AdvancedAppTricks/AdvancedAppTricks.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007072-CH7-SW4 called Supporting Multiple Versions of iOS, which explains different techniques for Objective-C. How can these be translated to Swift?

Answer 1

Swift 2.0 provides us with a simple and natural way to do this.It is called API Availability Checking.Because NSURLQueryItem class is only available since iOS8.0,you can do in this style to check it at runtime.
if #available(iOS 8.0, *) {
// NSURLQueryItem is available
} else {
// Fallback on earlier versions
}

Answer 2

Simplest way I know of
if NSClassFromString("NSURLQueryItem") != nil {
println("NSURLQueryItem exists")
}else{
println("NSURLQueryItem does not exists")
}

Answer 3

Try this:
if objc_getClass("NSURLQueryItem") != nil {
// iOS 8
} else {
// iOS 7
}
I've also done it like this too:
if let theClass: AnyClass = NSClassFromString("NSURLQueryItem") {
// iOS 8
} else {
// iOS 7
}
Or, you can also check system version like so, but this isn't the best practice for iOS dev - really you should check if a feature exists. But I've used this for a few iOS 7 hacks... pragmatism over purity.
switch UIDevice.currentDevice().systemVersion.compare("8.0.0", options: NSStringCompareOptions.NumericSearch) {
case .OrderedSame, .OrderedDescending:
iOS7 = false
case .OrderedAscending:
iOS7 = true
}