How to get the name of enumeration value in Swift?

Question

If I have an enumeration with raw Integer values:

enum City: Int {
  case Melbourne = 1, Chelyabinsk, Bursa
}

let city = City.Melbourne

How can I convert a city value to a string Melbourne? Is this kind of a type name introspection available in the language?

Something like (this code will not work):

println("Your city is \(city.magicFunction)")
> Your city is Melbourne

Answer 1

As of Xcode 7 beta 5 (Swift version 2) you can now print type names and enum cases by default using print(_:), or convert to String using String's init(_:) initializer or string interpolation syntax. So for your example:

enum City: Int {
    case Melbourne = 1, Chelyabinsk, Bursa
}
let city = City.Melbourne

print(city)
// prints "Melbourne"

let cityName = "\(city)"   // or `let cityName = String(city)`
// cityName contains "Melbourne"

So there is no longer a need to define & maintain a convenience function that switches on each case to return a string literal. In addition, this works automatically for any enum, even if no raw-value type is specified.

debugPrint(_:) & String(reflecting:) can be used for a fully-qualified name:

debugPrint(city)
// prints "App.City.Melbourne" (or similar, depending on the full scope)

let cityDebugName = String(reflecting: city)
// cityDebugName contains "App.City.Melbourne"

Note that you can customise what is printed in each of these scenarios:

extension City: CustomStringConvertible {
    var description: String {
        return "City \(rawValue)"
    }
}

print(city)
// prints "City 1"

extension City: CustomDebugStringConvertible {
    var debugDescription: String {
        return "City (rawValue: \(rawValue))"
    }
}

debugPrint(city)
// prints "City (rawValue: 1)"

(I haven't found a way to call into this "default" value, for example, to print "The city is Melbourne" without resorting back to a switch statement. Using \(self) in the implementation of description/debugDescription causes an infinite recursion.)

The comments above String's init(_:) & init(reflecting:) initializers describe exactly what is printed, depending on what the reflected type conforms to:

extension String {
    /// Initialize `self` with the textual representation of `instance`.
    ///
    /// * If `T` conforms to `Streamable`, the result is obtained by
    ///   calling `instance.writeTo(s)` on an empty string s.
    /// * Otherwise, if `T` conforms to `CustomStringConvertible`, the
    ///   result is `instance`'s `description`
    /// * Otherwise, if `T` conforms to `CustomDebugStringConvertible`,
    ///   the result is `instance`'s `debugDescription`
    /// * Otherwise, an unspecified result is supplied automatically by
    ///   the Swift standard library.
    ///
    /// - SeeAlso: `String.init<T>(reflecting: T)`
    public init<T>(_ instance: T)

    /// Initialize `self` with a detailed textual representation of
    /// `subject`, suitable for debugging.
    ///
    /// * If `T` conforms to `CustomDebugStringConvertible`, the result
    ///   is `subject`'s `debugDescription`.
    ///
    /// * Otherwise, if `T` conforms to `CustomStringConvertible`, the result
    ///   is `subject`'s `description`.
    ///
    /// * Otherwise, if `T` conforms to `Streamable`, the result is
    ///   obtained by calling `subject.writeTo(s)` on an empty string s.
    ///
    /// * Otherwise, an unspecified result is supplied automatically by
    ///   the Swift standard library.
    ///
    /// - SeeAlso: `String.init<T>(T)`
    public init<T>(reflecting subject: T)
}

See the release notes for info about this change.

Answer 2

There is no introspection on enum cases at the moment. You will have to declare them each manually:

enum City: String, CustomStringConvertible {
    case Melbourne = "Melbourne"
    case Chelyabinsk = "Chelyabinsk"
    case Bursa = "Bursa"

    var description: String {
        get {
            return self.rawValue
        }
    }
}

If you need the raw type to be an Int, you will have to do a switch yourself:

enum City: Int, CustomStringConvertible {
  case Melbourne = 1, Chelyabinsk, Bursa

  var description: String {
    get {
      switch self {
        case .Melbourne:
          return "Melbourne"
        case .Chelyabinsk:
          return "Chelyabinsk"
        case .Bursa:
          return "Bursa"
      }
    }
  }
}

Answer 3

In Swift-3 (tested with Xcode 8.1) you can add the following methods in your enum:

/**
 * The name of the enumeration (as written in case).
 */
var name: String {
    get { return String(describing: self) }
}

/**
 * The full name of the enumeration
 * (the name of the enum plus dot plus the name as written in case).
 */
var description: String {
    get { return String(reflecting: self) }
}

You can then use it as a normal method call on your enum instance. It might also work in previous Swift versions, but I haven't tested it.

In your example:

enum City: Int {
    case Melbourne = 1, Chelyabinsk, Bursa
    var name: String {
        get { return String(describing: self) }
    }
    var description: String {
        get { return String(reflecting: self) }
    }
}
let city = City.Melbourne

print(city.name)
// prints "Melbourne"

print(city.description)
// prints "City.Melbourne"

If you want to provide this functionality to all your enums, you can make it an extension:

/**
 * Extend all enums with a simple method to derive their names.
 */
extension RawRepresentable where RawValue: Any {
  /**
   * The name of the enumeration (as written in case).
   */
  var name: String {
    get { return String(describing: self) }
  }

  /**
   * The full name of the enumeration
   * (the name of the enum plus dot plus the name as written in case).
   */
  var description: String {
    get { return String(reflecting: self) }
  }
}

This only works for Swift enums.