Swift Standard Library

Solve complex problems and write high-performance, readable code.

Overview

The Swift standard library defines a base layer of functionality for writing Swift programs, including:

Fundamental data types such as Int, Double, and String
Common data structures such as Array, Dictionary, and Set
Global functions such as print(_:separator:terminator:) and abs(_:)
Protocols, such as Collection and Equatable, that describe common abstractions.
Protocols, such as CustomDebugStringConvertible and CustomReflectable, that you use to customize operations that are available to all types.
Protocols, such as OptionSet, that you use to provide implementations that would otherwise require boilerplate code.

Topics

Values and Collections

Numbers and Basic Values

Model data with numbers, Boolean values, and other fundamental types.

Strings and Text

Work with text using Unicode-safe strings.

Collections

Store and organize data using arrays, dictionaries, sets, and other data structures.

Time

Measure how long an operation takes and determine schedules in the future.

Tools for Your Types

Basic Behaviors

Use your custom types in operations that depend on testing for equality or order and as members of sets and dictionaries.

Encoding, Decoding, and Serialization

Serialize and deserialize instances of your types with implicit or customized encoding.

Initialization with Literals

Allow values of your type to be expressed using different kinds of literals.

Programming Tasks

Input and Output

Print values to the console, read from and write to text streams, and use command line arguments.

Debugging and Reflection

Fortify your code with runtime checks, and examine your values’ runtime representation.

Macros

Generate boilerplate code and perform other compile-time operations.

Concurrency

Perform asynchronous and parallel operations.

Key-Path Expressions

Use key-path expressions to access properties dynamically.

Manual Memory Management

Allocate and manage memory manually.

Type Casting and Existential Types

Perform casts between types or represent values of any type.

C Interoperability

Use imported C types or call C variadic functions.

Operator Declarations

Work with prefix, postfix, and infix operators.

Essentials

Standard Library

Values and Collections

Tools for Your Types

Programming Tasks

Deprecated

Observation

Distributed Actors

Regular Expression DSL

Low-Level Atomic Operations

Data Modeling

Data Flow and Control Flow

Language Interoperability with Objective-C and C

Language Interoperability with C++

Swift Standard Library

Overview

Topics

Values and Collections

Tools for Your Types

Programming Tasks

Deprecated

See Also

Standard Library