CODEWITHSUNDEEP
swiftuitableview
Lucas
Lucas

Reputation: 766

what's the difference between typing String() and String.self in swift?

I'm kind of stuck trying to understand .self in swift, always I register a custom cell in an collectionView or an tableView I have to register like customCollectionViewCell.self but why not for example customCollectionViewCell() ?

I've tried in the playground to type String.self in a var to see what happens and it give me no errors but when I try to give it a value it give me the following error

Cannot assign value of type 'String' to type String.Type

what does it mean?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 640

Answers (1)

David Pasztor
David Pasztor

Reputation: 54706

Type() is shorthand notation for Type.init(), so String() calls String.init() and hence initialises a String.

On the other hand, String.self returns the meta type of String, which is a type that represents the String type itself rather than any instance of that type. For more information on meta types, see the Metatype Type section of the official Swift language reference.

In your specific example, you need to register a UITableViewCell subclass type rather than an instance of a specific type, hence you need to use YourCellType.self.

Upvotes: 5

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