Swift Programming – Control Flow

In this tutorial you’ll learn about control flow in Swift. To follow along, it is recommended to have a Mac and the Xcode IDE installed on it. This tutorial makes use of the Xcode playground for compilation of the Swift codes. If you do not have a Mac, you may try using the open-source code editors which support different operating systems such as Atom, SublimeText or VSCode.

Control Flow

Swift provides the following control flow statements:

for-in loop
while loop
if
switch
guard

For-in loop

For-in loop is used to iterate over arrays, dictionaries, ranges of numbers or characters in a string.

Iterating over an array:

let groceries = ["Fruits", "Yogurt", "Bread", "Vegetables"]

for item in groceries {
    print("item is \(item)")
}

Iterating over a dictionary:

let learnAlphabets = ["a": "apples", "b": "bananas", "c": "cherries", "d": "dragon fruit"]

for (alphabet, fruit) in learnAlphabets {
    print("\(alphabet) for \(fruit)")
}

Iterating over a range of numbers:

let rangeOneToFour = 1...4

for i in rangeOneToFour {
    print("\(i) x 10 = \(i * 10)")
}

Iterating over characters in a string:

let myName = "Zakhia"

for character in myName {
    print("Character is \(character)")
}

Let’s say you want multiples of 2, instead of iterating over a range of numbers like we did before, you can use the function stride(from:to:by:), where you provide a starting number, a limit (not inclusive) and an interval.

var interval = 2
var counter = 0
print("multiples of 2:")
for i in stride(from: 2, to: 14, by: interval) {
    counter+=1
    print("\(counter) x 2 = \(i)")
}

You will notice that the output doesn’t include the limit 14. Let’s say you want multiples of 3 and you also want the iteration to include the limit you put. You can use the function stride(from:through:by:), where you provide a starting number, a limit (inclusive) and an interval.

interval = 3
counter = 0
print("multiples of 3:")
for j in stride(from: 3, through: 18, by: interval) {
    counter+=1
    print("\(counter) x 3 = \(j)")
}

Notice that the output now includes the limit 18.

While Loop

You provide a condition in a while loop, whereby iterations keep on going until the condition becomes false. There are two kinds of while loop in Swift:

while
repeat-while

// while loop
while counter < 10 {
    counter+=1
    print(counter)
}

// repeat-while loop
repeat {
    counter+=1
    print(counter)
} while counter < 10

The difference between a while loop and a repeat-while loop is that a while loop checks its condition before executing codes whilst the repeat-while loop checks its condition only after performing the first iteration.

Conditional Statement

Sometimes you might want to execute some codes only if a condition is true. Let’s say if the weather is sunny then you will go to the beach.

var isSunny = true

if isSunny {
    print("I will go to the beach")
}

Now let’s say you will do something else if the weather is not sunny.

isSunny = false

if isSunny {
    print("I will go to the beach")
} else {
    print("I will watch a movie on Netflix")
}

Now let’s say if the weather is sunny then you will go to the beach, if it’s not sunny but rainy, you will watch a movie on Netflix and if it’s not sunny nor rainy, you will go out with your friend.

let isRainy = false

if isSunny {
    print("I will go to the beach")
} else if !isSunny && !isRainy {
    print("I will go out with my friend")
} else {
    print("I will watch a movie on Netflix")
}

Switch

Switch is an alternative way to the if statement for executing codes based on some conditions. A switch statement must be exhaustive, which means that either you provide all the cases possible or only some cases with a default.

let output = 15 * 3
let myGuess = 45

switch myGuess {
case 40:
    print("Guess again")
case 45:
    print("Correct answer")
default:
    print("Wrong answer")
}

You can provide multiple cases to execute the same piece of codes.

let name = "zakhia"

switch name {
case "Zakhia", "zakhia", "ZAKHIA":
    print("That's my name!")
default:
    print("Not my name")
}

Guard

A guard statement is like an if statement with an else clause.

func show(value: String?) {
    guard let v = value else {
        return
    }
    print("Value is \(v)")
}

show(value: "cat")

If you have a Mac and Xcode installed, you can download the Playground file of this Codelabs. Happy coding!Download

Reference

https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/LanguageGuide/ControlFlow.html

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