Jul 15, 2014
Swift Language Changes in Xcode 6 beta 3
The Swift programming language continues to advance with each new Xcode 6 beta, including new features, syntax enhancements, and behavioral refinements. Xcode 6 beta 3 incorporates some important changes, a few of which we’d like to highlight:
- Array has been completely redesigned to have full value semantics to match the behavior of Dictionary and String. Now a let array is completely immutable, and a var array is completely mutable.
- Syntax “sugar” for Array and Dictionary has changed. Arrays are declared using [Int] as short hand for Array<Int>, instead of Int[]. Similarly, Dictionary uses [Key: Value] for Dictionary<Key, Value>.
- The half-open range operator has been changed from .. to ..< to make it more clear alongside the ... operator for closed ranges.
Xcode 6 beta is free to Registered Apple Developers and can be downloaded on the Xcode downloads page. Read all about these and other changes in the complete release notes for Xcode 6 beta 3.