What's the simplest way to convert from a single character String to an ASCII value in Swift?

Question

I just want to get the ASCII value of a single char string in Swift. This is how I'm currently doing it:

var singleChar = "a"
println(singleChar.unicodeScalars[singleChar.unicodeScalars.startIndex].value) //prints: 97

This is so ugly though. There must be a simpler way.

Answer 1

edit/update Swift 5.2 or later

extension StringProtocol {     var asciiValues: [UInt8] { compactMap(\.asciiValue) } } 

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"abc".asciiValues  // [97, 98, 99] 

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In Swift 5 you can use the new character properties isASCII and asciiValue

Character("a").isASCII       // true Character("a").asciiValue    // 97  Character("á").isASCII       // false Character("á").asciiValue    // nil 

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Old answer

You can create an extension:

Swift 4.2 or later

extension Character {     var isAscii: Bool {         return unicodeScalars.allSatisfy { $0.isASCII }     }     var ascii: UInt32? {         return isAscii ? unicodeScalars.first?.value : nil     } } 

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extension StringProtocol {     var asciiValues: [UInt32] {         return compactMap { $0.ascii }     } } 

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Character("a").isAscii  // true Character("a").ascii    // 97  Character("á").isAscii  // false Character("á").ascii    // nil  "abc".asciiValues            // [97, 98, 99] "abc".asciiValues[0]         // 97 "abc".asciiValues[1]         // 98 "abc".asciiValues[2]         // 99 

Answer 2

UnicodeScalar("1")!.value // returns 49

Swift 3.1

Answer 3

Now in Xcode 7.1 and Swift 2.1

var singleChar = "a"

singleChar.unicodeScalars.first?.value