[string] Swift: Convert enum value to String?

Given the following enum:

enum Audience {
    case Public
    case Friends
    case Private
}

How do I get the string "Public" from the audience constant below?

let audience = Audience.Public

For now, I'll redefine the enum as:

enum Audience: String {
    case Public = "Public"
    case Friends = "Friends"
    case Private = "Private"
}

so that I can do:

audience.toRaw() // "Public"

But, isn't this new enum definition redundant? Can I keep the initial enum definition and do something like:

audience.toString() // "Public"

I like to use Printable with Raw Values.

enum Audience: String, Printable {
    case Public = "Public"
    case Friends = "Friends"
    case Private = "Private"

    var description: String {
        return self.rawValue
    }
}

Then we can do:

let audience = Audience.Public.description // audience = "Public"

or

println("The value of Public is \(Audience.Public)") 
// Prints "The value of Public is Public"

One more way

public enum HTTP{
case get
case put
case delete
case patch
var value: String? {
return String(describing: self)
}

Use Ruby way

var public: String = "\(Audience.Public)"

The idiomatic interface for 'getting a String' is to use the CustomStringConvertible interface and access the description getter. Define your enum as:

enum Foo : CustomStringConvertible {
  case Bing
  case Bang
  case Boom
  
  var description : String { 
    switch self {
    // Use Internationalization, as appropriate.
    case .Bing: return "Bing"
    case .Bang: return "Bang"
    case .Boom: return "Boom"
    }
  }
}

In action:

 > let foo = Foo.Bing
foo: Foo = Bing
 > println ("String for 'foo' is \(foo)"
String for 'foo' is Bing

Updated: For Swift >= 2.0, replaced Printable with CustomStringConvertible

Note: Using CustomStringConvertible allows Foo to adopt a different raw type. For example enum Foo : Int, CustomStringConvertible { ... } is possible. This freedom can be useful.

It couldn't get simpler than this in Swift 2 and the latest Xcode 7 (no need to specify enum type, or .rawValue, descriptors etc...)

Updated for Swift 3 and Xcode 8:

    enum Audience {
        case Public
        case Friends
        case Private
    }

    let audience: Audience = .Public  // or, let audience = Audience.Public
    print(audience) // "Public"

There are multiple ways to do this. Either you could define a function in the enum which returns the string based on the value of enum type:

enum Audience{
    ...
func toString()->String{
  var a:String

  switch self{
   case .Public:
    a="Public"
   case .Friends:
    a="Friends"
   ...
 }
 return a
}

Or you could can try this:

enum Audience:String{
   case Public="Public"
   case Friends="Friends"
   case Private="Private"
}

And to use it:

var a:Audience=Audience.Public
println(a.toRaw())

After try few different ways, i found that if you don't want to use:

let audience = Audience.Public.toRaw()

You can still archive it using a struct

struct Audience {
   static let Public  = "Public"
   static let Friends = "Friends"
   static let Private = "Private"
}

then your code:

let audience = Audience.Public

will work as expected. It isn't pretty and there are some downsides because you not using a "enum", you can't use the shortcut only adding .Private neither will work with switch cases.

Updated for the release of Xcode 7 GM. It works as one would hope now--thanks Apple!

enum Rank:Int {
    case Ace = 1, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Jack, Queen, King
}

let r = Rank.Ace

print(r)               // prints "Ace"
print("Rank: \(r)!")   // prints "Rank: Ace!"

For anyone reading the example in "A Swift Tour" chapter of "The Swift Programming Language" and looking for a way to simplify the simpleDescription() method, converting the enum itself to String by doing String(self) will do it:

enum Rank: Int
{
    case Ace = 1 //required otherwise Ace will be 0
    case Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten
    case Jack, Queen, King
    func simpleDescription() -> String {
        switch self {
            case .Ace, .Jack, .Queen, .King:
                return String(self).lowercaseString
            default:
                return String(self.rawValue)
        }
     }
 }

In swift 3, you can use this

var enumValue = Customer.Physics
var str = String(describing: enumValue)

from Swift how to use enum to get string value

Starting from Swift 3.0 you can

var str = String(describing: Audience.friends)

A swift 3 and above example if using Ints in Enum

public enum ECategory : Int{
        case Attraction=0, FP, Food, Restroom, Popcorn, Shop, Service, None;
        var description: String {
            return String(describing: self)
        }
    }

let category = ECategory.Attraction
let categoryName = category.description //string Attraction