NSRange to Range<String.Index>

Question

As of Swift 4 (Xcode 9), the Swift standard library provides methods to convert between Swift string ranges (Range<String.Index>) and NSString ranges (NSRange). Example:

let str = "a👿b🇩🇪c"
let r1 = str.range(of: "🇩🇪")!

// String range to NSRange:
let n1 = NSRange(r1, in: str)
print((str as NSString).substring(with: n1)) // 🇩🇪

// NSRange back to String range:
let r2 = Range(n1, in: str)!
print(str[r2]) // 🇩🇪

Therefore the text replacement in the text field delegate method can now be done as

func textField(_ textField: UITextField,
               shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange,
               replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

    if let oldString = textField.text {
        let newString = oldString.replacingCharacters(in: Range(range, in: oldString)!,
                                                      with: string)
        // ...
    }
    // ...
}

---

(Older answers for Swift 3 and earlier:)

As of Swift 1.2, String.Index has an initializer

init?(_ utf16Index: UTF16Index, within characters: String)

which can be used to convert NSRange to Range<String.Index> correctly (including all cases of Emojis, Regional Indicators or other extended grapheme clusters) without intermediate conversion to an NSString:

extension String {
    func rangeFromNSRange(nsRange : NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        let from16 = advance(utf16.startIndex, nsRange.location, utf16.endIndex)
        let to16 = advance(from16, nsRange.length, utf16.endIndex)
        if let from = String.Index(from16, within: self),
            let to = String.Index(to16, within: self) {
                return from ..< to
        }
        return nil
    }
}

This method returns an optional string range because not all NSRanges are valid for a given Swift string.

The UITextFieldDelegate delegate method can then be written as

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

    if let swRange = textField.text.rangeFromNSRange(range) {
        let newString = textField.text.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(swRange, withString: string)
        // ...
    }
    return true
}

The inverse conversion is

extension String {
    func NSRangeFromRange(range : Range<String.Index>) -> NSRange {
        let utf16view = self.utf16
        let from = String.UTF16View.Index(range.startIndex, within: utf16view) 
        let to = String.UTF16View.Index(range.endIndex, within: utf16view)
        return NSMakeRange(from - utf16view.startIndex, to - from)
    }
}

A simple test:

let str = "a👿b🇩🇪c"
let r1 = str.rangeOfString("🇩🇪")!

// String range to NSRange:
let n1 = str.NSRangeFromRange(r1)
println((str as NSString).substringWithRange(n1)) // 🇩🇪

// NSRange back to String range:
let r2 = str.rangeFromNSRange(n1)!
println(str.substringWithRange(r2)) // 🇩🇪

Update for Swift 2:

The Swift 2 version of rangeFromNSRange() was already given by Serhii Yakovenko in this answer, I am including it here for completeness:

extension String {
    func rangeFromNSRange(nsRange : NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        let from16 = utf16.startIndex.advancedBy(nsRange.location, limit: utf16.endIndex)
        let to16 = from16.advancedBy(nsRange.length, limit: utf16.endIndex)
        if let from = String.Index(from16, within: self),
            let to = String.Index(to16, within: self) {
                return from ..< to
        }
        return nil
    }
}

The Swift 2 version of NSRangeFromRange() is

extension String {
    func NSRangeFromRange(range : Range<String.Index>) -> NSRange {
        let utf16view = self.utf16
        let from = String.UTF16View.Index(range.startIndex, within: utf16view)
        let to = String.UTF16View.Index(range.endIndex, within: utf16view)
        return NSMakeRange(utf16view.startIndex.distanceTo(from), from.distanceTo(to))
    }
}

Update for Swift 3 (Xcode 8):

extension String {
    func nsRange(from range: Range<String.Index>) -> NSRange {
        let from = range.lowerBound.samePosition(in: utf16)
        let to = range.upperBound.samePosition(in: utf16)
        return NSRange(location: utf16.distance(from: utf16.startIndex, to: from),
                       length: utf16.distance(from: from, to: to))
    }
}

extension String {
    func range(from nsRange: NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        guard
            let from16 = utf16.index(utf16.startIndex, offsetBy: nsRange.location, limitedBy: utf16.endIndex),
            let to16 = utf16.index(utf16.startIndex, offsetBy: nsRange.location + nsRange.length, limitedBy: utf16.endIndex),
            let from = from16.samePosition(in: self),
            let to = to16.samePosition(in: self)
            else { return nil }
        return from ..< to
    }
}

Example:

let str = "a👿b🇩🇪c"
let r1 = str.range(of: "🇩🇪")!

// String range to NSRange:
let n1 = str.nsRange(from: r1)
print((str as NSString).substring(with: n1)) // 🇩🇪

// NSRange back to String range:
let r2 = str.range(from: n1)!
print(str.substring(with: r2)) // 🇩🇪

The NSString version (as opposed to Swift String) of replacingCharacters(in: NSRange, with: NSString) accepts an NSRange, so one simple solution is to convert String to NSString first. The delegate and replacement method names are slightly different in Swift 3 and 2, so depending on which Swift you're using:

Swift 3.0

func textField(_ textField: UITextField,
               shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange,
               replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

  let nsString = textField.text as NSString?
  let newString = nsString?.replacingCharacters(in: range, with: string)
}

Swift 2.x

func textField(textField: UITextField,
               shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange,
               replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

    let nsString = textField.text as NSString?
    let newString = nsString?.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range, withString: string)
}

This answer by Martin R seems to be correct because it accounts for Unicode.

However at the time of the post (Swift 1) his code doesn't compile in Swift 2.0 (Xcode 7), because they removed advance() function. Updated version is below:

Swift 2

extension String {
    func rangeFromNSRange(nsRange : NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        let from16 = utf16.startIndex.advancedBy(nsRange.location, limit: utf16.endIndex)
        let to16 = from16.advancedBy(nsRange.length, limit: utf16.endIndex)
        if let from = String.Index(from16, within: self),
            let to = String.Index(to16, within: self) {
                return from ..< to
        }
        return nil
    }
}

Swift 3

extension String {
    func rangeFromNSRange(nsRange : NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        if let from16 = utf16.index(utf16.startIndex, offsetBy: nsRange.location, limitedBy: utf16.endIndex),
            let to16 = utf16.index(from16, offsetBy: nsRange.length, limitedBy: utf16.endIndex),
            let from = String.Index(from16, within: self),
            let to = String.Index(to16, within: self) {
                return from ..< to
        }
        return nil
    }
}

Swift 4

extension String {
    func rangeFromNSRange(nsRange : NSRange) -> Range<String.Index>? {
        return Range(nsRange, in: self)
    }
}

You need to use Range<String.Index> instead of the classic NSRange. The way I do it (maybe there is a better way) is by taking the string's String.Index a moving it with advance.

I don't know what range you are trying to replace, but let's pretend you want to replace the first 2 characters.

var start = textField.text.startIndex // Start at the string's start index
var end = advance(textField.text.startIndex, 2) // Take start index and advance 2 characters forward
var range: Range<String.Index> = Range<String.Index>(start: start,end: end)

textField.text.stringByReplacingCharactersInRange(range, withString: string)

This is similar to Emilie's answer however since you asked specifically how to convert the NSRange to Range<String.Index> you would do something like this:

func textField(textField: UITextField, shouldChangeCharactersInRange range: NSRange, replacementString string: String) -> Bool {

     let start = advance(textField.text.startIndex, range.location) 
     let end = advance(start, range.length) 
     let swiftRange = Range<String.Index>(start: start, end: end) 
     ...

}