How to convert Swift Character to String?

Question

I want to return the first letter of a String as a String instead of as a Character:

func firstLetter() -> String {     return self.title[0] } 

However, with the above I get Character is not convertible to String. What's the right way to convert a Character to a String?

This answer suggests creating a subscript extension, but the declaration for String already has a subscript method:

subscript (i: String.Index) -> Character { get } 

Is that answer outdated, or are these two different things?

Answer 1

Why don't you use String interpolation to convert the Character to a String?

return "\(firstChar)" 

Answer 2

Just the first character? How about:

var str = "This is a test" var result = str[str.startIndex..<str.startIndex.successor()] // "T": String 

Returns a String (as you'd expect with a range subscript of a String) and works as long as there's at least one character.

This is a little shorter, and presumably might be a fraction faster, but to my mind doesn't read quite so clearly:

var result = str[str.startIndex...str.startIndex]