Swift: How to get substring from start to last index of character

Question

I want to learn the best/simplest way to turn a string into another string but with only a subset, starting at the beginning and going to the last index of a character.

For example, convert "www.stackoverflow.com" to "www.stackoverflow". What code snippet would do that, and being the most swift-like? (I hope this doesn't bring a debate, but I can't find good lesson on how to handle substrings in Swift.

Answer 1

Just accessing backward

The best way is to use substringToIndex combined to the endIndexproperty and the advance global function.

var string1 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

var index1 = advance(string1.endIndex, -4)

var substring1 = string1.substringToIndex(index1)

Looking for a string starting from the back

Use rangeOfString and set options to .BackwardsSearch

var string2 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

var index2 = string2.rangeOfString(".", options: .BackwardsSearch)?.startIndex

var substring2 = string2.substringToIndex(index2!)

No extensions, pure idiomatic Swift

Swift 2.0

advance is now a part of Index and is called advancedBy. You do it like:

var string1 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

var index1 = string1.endIndex.advancedBy(-4)

var substring1 = string1.substringToIndex(index1)

Swift 3.0

You can't call advancedBy on a String because it has variable size elements. You have to use index(_, offsetBy:).

var string1 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

var index1 = string1.index(string1.endIndex, offsetBy: -4)

var substring1 = string1.substring(to: index1)

A lot of things have been renamed. The cases are written in camelCase, startIndex became lowerBound.

var string2 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

var index2 = string2.range(of: ".", options: .backwards)?.lowerBound

var substring2 = string2.substring(to: index2!)

Also, I wouldn't recommend force unwrapping index2. You can use optional binding or map. Personally, I prefer using map:

var substring3 = index2.map(string2.substring(to:))

Swift 4

The Swift 3 version is still valid but now you can now use subscripts with indexes ranges:

let string1 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

let index1 = string1.index(string1.endIndex, offsetBy: -4)

let substring1 = string1[..<index1]

The second approach remains unchanged:

let string2 = "www.stackoverflow.com"

let index2 = string2.range(of: ".", options: .backwards)?.lowerBound

let substring3 = index2.map(string2.substring(to:))

Answer 2

Swift 3, XCode 8

func lastIndexOfCharacter(_ c: Character) -> Int? {
    return range(of: String(c), options: .backwards)?.lowerBound.encodedOffset
}

Since advancedBy(Int) is gone since Swift 3 use String's method index(String.Index, Int). Check out this String extension with substring and friends:

public extension String {

    //right is the first encountered string after left
    func between(_ left: String, _ right: String) -> String? {
        guard let leftRange = range(of: left), let rightRange = range(of: right, options: .backwards)
        , leftRange.upperBound <= rightRange.lowerBound
            else { return nil }
    
        let sub = self.substring(from: leftRange.upperBound)
        let closestToLeftRange = sub.range(of: right)!
        return sub.substring(to: closestToLeftRange.lowerBound)
    }

    var length: Int {
        get {
            return self.characters.count
        }
    }

    func substring(to : Int) -> String {
        let toIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: to)
        return self.substring(to: toIndex)
    }

    func substring(from : Int) -> String {
        let fromIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: from)
        return self.substring(from: fromIndex)
    }

    func substring(_ r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        let fromIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)
        let toIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound)
        return self.substring(with: Range<String.Index>(uncheckedBounds: (lower: fromIndex, upper: toIndex)))
    }

    func character(_ at: Int) -> Character {
        return self[self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: at)]
    }

    func lastIndexOfCharacter(_ c: Character) -> Int? {
        guard let index = range(of: String(c), options: .backwards)?.lowerBound else
        { return nil }
        return distance(from: startIndex, to: index)
    }
}

---

UPDATED extension for Swift 5

public extension String {
    
    //right is the first encountered string after left
    func between(_ left: String, _ right: String) -> String? {
        guard
            let leftRange = range(of: left), let rightRange = range(of: right, options: .backwards)
            , leftRange.upperBound <= rightRange.lowerBound
            else { return nil }
        
        let sub = self[leftRange.upperBound...]
        let closestToLeftRange = sub.range(of: right)!            
        return String(sub[..<closestToLeftRange.lowerBound])
    }
    
    var length: Int {
        get {
            return self.count
        }
    }
    
    func substring(to : Int) -> String {
        let toIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: to)
        return String(self[...toIndex])
    }
    
    func substring(from : Int) -> String {
        let fromIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: from)
        return String(self[fromIndex...])
    }
    
    func substring(_ r: Range<Int>) -> String {
        let fromIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.lowerBound)
        let toIndex = self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: r.upperBound)
        let indexRange = Range<String.Index>(uncheckedBounds: (lower: fromIndex, upper: toIndex))
        return String(self[indexRange])
    }
    
    func character(_ at: Int) -> Character {
        return self[self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: at)]
    }
    
    func lastIndexOfCharacter(_ c: Character) -> Int? {
        guard let index = range(of: String(c), options: .backwards)?.lowerBound else
        { return nil }
        return distance(from: startIndex, to: index)
    }
}

Usage:

let text = "www.stackoverflow.com"
let at = text.character(3) // .
let range = text.substring(0..<3) // www
let from = text.substring(from: 4) // stackoverflow.com
let to = text.substring(to: 16) // www.stackoverflow
let between = text.between(".", ".") // stackoverflow
let substringToLastIndexOfChar = text.lastIndexOfCharacter(".") // 17

P.S. It's really odd that developers forced to deal with String.Index instead of plain Int. Why should we bother about internal String mechanics and not just have simple substring() methods?

Answer 3

I would do it using a subscript (s[start..<end]):

Swift 3, 4, 5

let s = "www.stackoverflow.com"
let start = s.startIndex
let end = s.index(s.endIndex, offsetBy: -4)
let substring = s[start..<end] // www.stackoverflow