Split a String into an array in Swift

Question

Say I have a string here   var fullName  String    First Last    I want to split the string base on white space and assign the values to their respective variables  var fullNameArr      something like  fullName explode        var firstName  String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName  String    fullnameArr 1    Also  sometimes users might not have a last name

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Or without closures you can do just this in Swift 2   let fullName    First Last  let fullNameArr   fullName characters split      let firstName   String fullNameArr 0

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Swift 4  let words    these words will be elements in an array  components separatedBy

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var fullName    James Keagan Michael  let first   fullName components separatedBy       first  isEmpty    false   fullName components separatedBy       first     John  let last    fullName components separatedBy       last  isEmpty    false  amp  amp  fullName components separatedBy       last    fullName components separatedBy       first   fullName components separatedBy       last     Doe     Disallow same first and last name If a fullname is invalid  take placeholder value  John Doe

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Most of these answers assume the input contains a space - not whitespace  and a single space at that   If you can safely make that assumption  then the accepted answer  from bennett  is quite elegant and also the method I ll be going with when I can   When we can t make that assumption  a more robust solution needs to cover the following siutations that most answers here don t consider    tabs newlines spaces  whitespace   including recurring characters leading trailing whitespace Apple Linux   n  and Windows   r n  newline characters   To cover these cases this solution uses regex to convert all whitespace  including recurring and Windows newline characters  to a single space  trims  then splits by a single space   Swift 3   let searchInput      First  r n  n  t t tMiddle    Last   let searchTerms   searchInput       replacingOccurrences          of     s            with               options   regularExpression            trimmingCharacters in   whitespaces       components separatedBy           searchTerms      First    Middle    Last

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The whitespace issue  Generally  people reinvent this problem and bad solutions over and over  Is this a space      and what about   n     t  or some unicode whitespace character that you ve never seen  in no small part because it is invisible  While you can get away with   A weak solution  import Foundation let pieces    Mary had little lamb  componentsSeparatedByString        If you ever need to shake your grip on reality watch a WWDC video on strings or dates  In short  it is almost always better to allow Apple to solve this kind of mundane task    Robust Solution  Use NSCharacterSet  The way to do this correctly  IMHO  is to use NSCharacterSet since as stated earlier your whitespace might not be what you expect and Apple has provided a whitespace character set  To explore the various provided character sets check out Apple s NSCharacterSet developer documentation and then  only then  augment or construct a new character set if it doesn t fit your needs    NSCharacterSet whitespaces     Returns a character set containing the characters in Unicode General   Category Zs and CHARACTER TABULATION  U 0009     let longerString  String    This is a test of the character set splitting system  let components   longerString components separatedBy   whitespaces  print components

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As an alternative to WMios s answer  you can also use componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet  which can be handy in the case you have more separators  blank space  comma  etc     With your specific input   let separators   NSCharacterSet charactersInString       var fullName  String    First Last   var words   fullName componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet separators      words contains   First    Last     Using multiple separators   let separators   NSCharacterSet charactersInString        var fullName  String    Last  First Middle   var words   fullName componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet separators      words contains   Last    First    Middle

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You can use this common function and add any string which you want to separate   func separateByString String wholeString  String  byChar char String  - gt   String         let resultArray   wholeString components separatedBy  char      return resultArray    var fullName  String    First Last  let array   separateByString String  fullName  byChar       var firstName  String   array 0  var lastName  String   array 1  print firstName  print lastName

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The easiest method to do this is by using componentsSeparatedBy   For Swift 2   import Foundation let fullName   String    First Last   let fullNameArr    String    fullName componentsSeparatedByString          And then to access the individual words   var firstName   String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName   String   fullNameArr 1    For Swift 3   import Foundation  let fullName   String    First Last  let fullNameArr    String    fullName components separatedBy           And then to access the individual words   var firstName   String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName   String   fullNameArr 1

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Only the split is the correct answer  here are the difference for more than 2 spaces  Swift 5 var temp    quot Hello world     ni hao quot  let arr    temp components separatedBy   whitespacesAndNewlines       quot Hello quot    quot world quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot ni quot    quot hao quot   let arr2   temp components separatedBy   quot   quot        quot Hello quot    quot world quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot  quot    quot ni quot    quot hao quot   let arr3   temp split whereSeparator    0     quot   quot         quot Hello quot    quot world quot    quot ni quot    quot hao quot

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I found an Interesting case  that  method 1  var data  String    split  featureData      0      u 003B       When I used this command to split some symbol from the data that loaded from server  it can split while test in simulator and sync with test device  but it won t split in publish app  and Ad Hoc  It take me a lot of time to track this error  It might cursed from some Swift Version  or some iOS Version or neither  It s not about the HTML code also  since I try to stringByRemovingPercentEncoding and it s still not work  addition 10 10 2015  in Swift 2 0 this method has been changed to   var data  String    featureData split   0      u 003B        method 2  var data  String    featureData componentsSeparatedByString   u 003B      When I used this command  it can split the same data that load from server correctly    Conclusion  I really suggest to use the method 2   string componentsSeparatedByString

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Xcode 8 0   Swift 3  let fullName    First Last  var fullNameArr   fullName components separatedBy        var firstname   fullNameArr 0     First var lastname   fullNameArr 1     Last   Long Way   var fullName  String    First Last  fullName           this will help to see the last word  var newElement        Empty String var fullNameArr    String      Empty Array  for Character in fullName characters       if Character                  fullNameArr append newElement          newElement            else           newElement       Character             var firsName   fullNameArr 0     First var lastName   fullNameArr 1     Last

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This has Changed again in Beta 5  Weee  It s now a method on CollectionType  Old    var fullName    First Last  var fullNameArr   split fullName    0           New    var fullName    First Last  var fullNameArr   fullName split   0           Apples Release Notes

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Expounding off of Don Vaughn s Answer  I liked the use of Regular Expressions  I m surprised that this is only the 2nd Regex answer  However  if we could solve this in just one split method  instead of multiple methods  that would be great  I was also inspired by Mithra Singam s Answer to exclude all punctuation as well as whitespace  However  having to create a list of disallowed characters didn t vibe with me    w - Regular Expression for a Letter or Number symbol  No punctuation   let foo    quot        Hello   ---- World    quot  split       String  0  range of    quot  w quot    options   regularExpression     nil   print foo     Prints  quot Hello World quot    Let s say you aren t comfortable will all of Unicode  How about just ASKII Letters and Numbers  let bar    quot        Hello   ---- World    quot  split          0 isASCII  amp  amp    0 isLetter     0 isNumber     print bar     Prints  quot Hello World quot

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Just call componentsSeparatedByString method on your fullName  import Foundation  var fullName  String    First Last  let fullNameArr   fullName componentsSeparatedByString       var firstName  String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName  String   fullNameArr 1    Update for Swift 3   import Foundation  let fullName       First Last  let fullNameArr   fullName components separatedBy        let name      fullNameArr 0  let surname   fullNameArr 1

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let fullName   String    Steve Jobs  let fullNameArr    String    fullName components separatedBy        var firstName   String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName   String   fullNameArr 1

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Swift 3  let line    AAA    BBB t CCC  let fields   line components separatedBy   whitespaces  filter    0 isEmpty     Returns three strings AAA  BBB and CCC Filters out empty fields Handles multiple spaces and tabulation characters If you want to handle new lines  then replace  whitespaces with  whitespacesAndNewlines

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Swift 4 makes it much easier to split characters  just use the new split function for Strings   Example   let s    hi  hello  let a   s split separator       print a    Now you got an array with  hi  and   hello

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Swift 2 2 Error Handling  amp  capitalizedString Added     func setFullName fullName  String        var fullNameComponents   fullName componentsSeparatedByString           self fname   fullNameComponents count  gt  0   fullNameComponents 0          self sname   fullNameComponents count  gt  1   fullNameComponents 1           self fname   self fname  capitalizedString     self sname   self sname  capitalizedString

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Steps to split a string into an array in Swift 4     assign string based on   splitting     Note  variableName components separatedBy   split keyword    let fullName  String    First Last   triggerd event of the session by session storage   it can be divided by the event of the trigger   let fullNameArr   fullName components separatedBy       print  split   fullNameArr

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String handling is still a challenge in Swift and it keeps changing significantly  as you can see from other answers  Hopefully things settle down and it gets simpler  This is the way to do it with the current 3 0 version of Swift with multiple separator characters    Swift 3   let chars   CharacterSet charactersIn       -   let split   phrase components separatedBy  chars      Or if the enums do what you want  these are preferred   let chars2   CharacterSet alphaNumerics     whitespaces   punctuation   capitalizedLetters etc let split2   phrase components separatedBy  chars2

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let str    one two  let strSplit   str characters split      map String init     returns   one    two     Xcode 7 2  7C68

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This is for String and CSV file for swift 4 2 at  20181206 1610  var dataArray     String         let path   Bundle main path forResource   csvfilename   ofType   csv           let url   URL fileURLWithPath  path           do               let data   try Data contentsOf  url               let content   String data  data  encoding   utf8              let parsedCSV   content  components separatedBy    r n   map   0 components separatedBy                    for line in parsedCSV                                dataArray append line                                 catch let jsonErr               print   n   Error read CSV file   n    jsonErr                         print   n MohNada 20181206 1610 - The final result is   dataArray    n

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Let s say you have a variable named  Hello World  and if you want to split it and store it into two different variables you can use like this   var fullText    Hello World  let firstWord   fullText text  components separatedBy       first let lastWord   fullText text  components separatedBy       last

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Swift Dev  4 0  May 24  2017   A new function split in Swift 4  Beta    import Foundation let sayHello    Hello Swift 4 2017   let result   sayHello split separator       print result    Output     Hello    Swift    4    2017     Accessing values   print result 0      Hello print result 1      Swift print result 2      4 print result 3      2017   Xcode 8 1   Swift 3 0 1  Here is the way multiple delimiters with array   import Foundation let mathString  String    12-37 2 5  let numbers   mathString components separatedBy    -              print numbers    Output     12    37    2    5

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As per Swift 2 2  You just write 2 line code and you will get the split string   let fullName    FirstName LastName  var splitedFullName   fullName componentsSeparatedByString      print splitedFullName 0   print splitedFullName 1      Enjoy

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Update for Swift 5 and the simpliest way let paragraph    quot Bob hit a ball  the hit BALL flew far after it was hit  Hello  Hie  How r u  quot   let words   paragraph components separatedBy    quot   quot    quot   quot    quot   quot   quot   quot   quot   quot     This prints     quot Bob quot    quot hit quot    quot a quot    quot ball quot    quot  quot    quot the quot    quot hit quot    quot BALL quot    quot flew quot    quot far quot    quot after quot    quot it quot    quot was quot    quot hit quot    quot  quot    quot Hello quot    quot  quot    quot Hie quot    quot  quot    quot How quot    quot r quot    quot u quot    quot  quot    However  if you want to filter out empty string  let words   paragraph components separatedBy    quot   quot    quot   quot    quot   quot   quot   quot   quot   quot    filter    0 isEmpty    Output     quot Bob quot    quot hit quot    quot a quot    quot ball quot    quot the quot    quot hit quot    quot BALL quot    quot flew quot    quot far quot    quot after quot    quot it quot    quot was quot    quot hit quot    quot Hello quot    quot Hie quot    quot How quot    quot r quot    quot u quot    But make sure  Foundation is imported

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This gives an array of split parts directly  var fullNameArr   fullName components separatedBy        then you can use like this   var firstName  String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName  String    fullnameArr 1

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In Swift 4 2 and Xcode 10    This is your str let str    This is my String    Here replace with your string   Option 1  let items   str components separatedBy        Here replase space with your value and the result is Array    Direct single line of code   let items    This is my String  components separatedBy       let str1   items 0  let str2   items 1  let str3   items 2  let str4   items 3    OutPut print items count  print str1  print str2  print str3  print str4  print items first   print items last     Option 2  let items   str split separator       let str1   String items first   let str2   String items last     Output print items count  print items  print str1  print str2    Option 3  let arr   str split   0         print arr    Option 4    let line    BLANCHE    I don t want realism  I want magic   print line split separator           Prints    BLANCHE     I    don  t    want    realism     I    want    magic       By Apple Documentation      let line    BLANCHE    I don t want realism  I want magic   print line split separator           Prints    BLANCHE     I    don  t    want    realism     I    want    magic      print line split separator       maxSplits  1    This can split your string into 2 parts    Prints    BLANCHE       I don  t want realism  I want magic      print line split separator       maxSplits  2    This can split your string into 3 parts  print line split separator       omittingEmptySubsequences  false    array contains empty strings where spaces were repeated     Prints    BLANCHE             I    don  t    want    realism     I    want    magic      print line split separator       omittingEmptySubsequences  true    array not contains empty strings where spaces were repeated  print line split separator       maxSplits  4  omittingEmptySubsequences  false   print line split separator       maxSplits  3  omittingEmptySubsequences  true

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I haven t found the solution that would handle names with 3 or more components and support older iOS versions   struct NameComponentsSplitter        static func split fullName  String  - gt   String   String             guard  fullName isEmpty else               return  nil  nil                    let components   fullName components separatedBy   whitespacesAndNewlines          let lastName   components last         let firstName   components dropLast   joined separator               return  firstName isEmpty   nil   firstName  lastName            Passed test cases   func testThatItHandlesTwoComponents         let  firstName  lastName    NameComponentsSplitter split fullName   John Smith       XCTAssertEqual firstName   John       XCTAssertEqual lastName   Smith      func testThatItHandlesMoreThanTwoComponents         var  firstName  lastName    NameComponentsSplitter split fullName   John Clark Smith       XCTAssertEqual firstName   John Clark       XCTAssertEqual lastName   Smith         firstName  lastName    NameComponentsSplitter split fullName   John Clark Jr  Smith       XCTAssertEqual firstName   John Clark Jr        XCTAssertEqual lastName   Smith      func testThatItHandlesEmptyInput         let  firstName  lastName    NameComponentsSplitter split fullName          XCTAssertEqual firstName  nil      XCTAssertEqual lastName  nil

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Here is an algorithm I just build  which will split a String by any Character from the array and if there is any desire to keep the substrings with splitted characters one could set the swallow parameter to true   Xcode 7 3 - Swift 2 2   extension String        func splitBy characters   Character   swallow  Bool   false  - gt   String             var substring              var array    String            var index   0          for character in self characters                if let lastCharacter   substring characters last                       swallow same characters                 if lastCharacter    character                        substring append character                     else                        var shouldSplit   false                         check if we need to split already                     for splitCharacter in characters                              slit if the last character is from split characters or the current one                         if character    splitCharacter    lastCharacter    splitCharacter                                shouldSplit   true                             break                                                                      if shouldSplit                            array append substring                          substring   String character                         else    swallow characters that do not equal any of the split characters                               substring append character                                                        else    should be the first iteration                       substring append character                             index    1                 add last substring to the array             if index    self characters count                    array append substring                                   return array filter                if swallow                    return true                else                    for splitCharacter in characters                        if  0 characters contains splitCharacter                             return false                                                         return true                                   Example    test text  splitBy             test    text    test  text--  splitBy        -    swallow  true       test         text    --

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The Swift way is to use the global split function  like so   var fullName    First Last  var fullNameArr   split fullName    0         var firstName  String   fullNameArr 0  var lastName  String    fullNameArr count  gt  1   fullNameArr 1    nil   with Swift 2   In Swift 2 the use of split becomes a bit more complicated due to the introduction of the internal CharacterView type  This means that String no longer adopts the SequenceType or CollectionType protocols and you must instead use the  characters property to access a CharacterView type representation of a String instance   Note  CharacterView does adopt SequenceType and CollectionType protocols    let fullName    First Last  let fullNameArr   fullName characters split  0         map String init     or simply     let fullNameArr   fullName characters split      map String init   fullNameArr 0     First fullNameArr 1     Last

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Swift 4 or later  If you just need to properly format a person name  you can use PersonNameComponentsFormatter      The PersonNameComponentsFormatter class provides localized   representations of the components of a person   s name  as represented   by a PersonNameComponents object  Use this class to create localized   names when displaying person name information to the user         iOS  9 0 and later   macOS  10 11 and later   tvOS  9 0 and later   watchOS  2 0 and later  let nameFormatter   PersonNameComponentsFormatter    let name     Mr  Steven Paul Jobs Jr      personNameComponents requires iOS  10 0 and later  if let nameComps    nameFormatter personNameComponents from  name        nameComps namePrefix      Mr      nameComps givenName       Steven     nameComps middleName      Paul     nameComps familyName      Jobs     nameComps nameSuffix      Jr          It can also be configured to format your names        Default  same as medium   short  long or abbreviated      nameFormatter style    default     nameFormatter string from  nameComps        Steven Jobs       nameFormatter style    short     nameFormatter string from  nameComps        Steven       nameFormatter style    long     nameFormatter string from  nameComps        Mr  Steven Paul Jobs jr        nameFormatter style    abbreviated     nameFormatter string from  nameComps       SJ         It can also be use to return an attributed string using annotatedString method     nameFormatter style    long     nameFormatter annotatedString from  nameComps        Mr  Steven Paul Jobs jr         edit update   Swift 5 or later  For just splitting a string by non letter characters we can use the new Character property isLetter   let fullName    First Last   let components   fullName split    0 isLetter   print components         First    Last   n

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Swift 4  let string    loremipsum dolorsant amet    let result   string components separatedBy        print result 0   print result 1   print result 2   print  total    result count      Output  loremipsum dolorsant amet  total  3

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For swift 2  XCode 7 1   let complete string String    Hello world  let string arr    complete string characters split   0         map String init  let hello String   string arr 0  let world String   string arr 1

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Swift 4  Xcode 10 and iOS 12 Update 100  working  let fullName    First Last      let fullNameArr   fullName components separatedBy       let firstName   fullNameArr 0    First let lastName   fullNameArr 1    Last   See the Apple s documentation here for further information

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I was looking for loosy split  such as PHP s explode where empty sequences are included in resulting array  this worked for me    First   split separator       maxSplits  1  omittingEmptySubsequences  false    Output     First

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I had a scenario where multiple control characters can be present in the string I want to split  Rather than maintain an array of these  I just let Apple handle that part   The following works with Swift 3 0 1 on iOS 10   let myArray   myString components separatedBy   controlCharacters

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