Generics in Swift

How can you use this “magical” feature of Swift? What are the advantages?

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Generics are used to cut down on code reuse and enables abstraction of problems. Some say that this is an advanced feature of Swift, but I disagree. Once you get used to it, it becomes quite easy (as we shall see).

Difficulty: Easy | Normal | Challenging

Prerequisites

Some basic understanding of functions and methods in Swift.

Terminology

Generics: Reusable functions and types that can work with any type (or subset of a certain type.

Method signature: A combination of the method name and the parameter list that is used for a function.

Why It Matters — And How Arrays Might Use Generics

Generics are a powerful feature, and one that is often asked about during interviews to try to find the breadth of your knowledge.

You already use generics: Arrays allow you to take any type and hold them without having to specify a different type of array for each. Swift’s type inference means that this all feels rather seamless and easy.