Complex numbers in Swift?

Question

Does Apple's Swift language support complex numbers out of the box?

I couldn't find any mention in the docs any equivalent for C++ std::complex nor could I find one when playing with it.

Answer 1

I wrote the following:

https://github.com/dankogai/swift-complex

Just add complex.swift to your project and you can go like:

let z = 1-1.i

It has all functions and operators that of C++11 covers.

Unlike C++11 complex.swift is not generic -- z.real and z.imag are always Double.

But the necessity for complex integer is very moot and IMHO it should be treated in different type (GaussianInteger, maybe).

Answer 2

No. You may import the Accelerate module via import Accelerate and use the DSPComplex type. Refer to the documentation for more detail.

Answer 3

Apple's Swift Numerics package supports complex numbers. It was first released on November 7, 2019. The package became stable with a 1.0.0 release on August 31, 2021.

Here are some examples from the initial release announcement :

import Complex

let z: Complex<Double> = 2 + 3 * .i
print(z.real)      // 2.0
print(z.imaginary) // 3.0

let w = Complex<Double>(1, -2) // (1.0, -2.0)

let u: Complex<Double> = .i * .i // (-1.0, 0.0)