## Type Casting Type casting in Swift is implemented with the is and as operators. These two operators provide a simple and expressive way to check the type of a value or cast a value to a different type. ~~~ class MediaItem { var name: String init(name: String) { self.name = name } } class Movie: MediaItem { var director: String init(name: String, director: String) { self.director = director super.init(name: name) } } class Song: MediaItem { var artist: String init(name: String, artist: String) { self.artist = artist super.init(name: name) } } let library = [ Movie(name: "Casablanca", director: "Michael Curtiz"), Song(name: "Blue Suede Shoes", artist: "Elvis Presley"), Movie(name: "Citizen Kane", director: "Orson Welles"), Song(name: "The One And Only", artist: "Chesney Hawkes"), Song(name: "Never Gonna Give You Up", artist: "Rick Astley") ] // the type of "library" is inferred to be MediaItem[] // Use the type check operator (is) to check whether an instance is of a certain subclass type. var movieCount = 0 var songCount = 0 for item in library { if item is Movie { ++movieCount } else if item is Song { ++songCount } } println("Media library contains \(movieCount) movies and \(songCount) songs") // prints "Media library contains 2 movies and 3 songs” for item in library { if let movie = item as? Movie { println("Movie: '\(movie.name)', dir. \(movie.director)") } else if let song = item as? Song { println("Song: '\(song.name)', by \(song.artist)") } } // Movie: 'Casablanca', dir. Michael Curtiz // Song: 'Blue Suede Shoes', by Elvis Presley // Movie: 'Citizen Kane', dir. Orson Welles // Song: 'The One And Only', by Chesney Hawkes // Song: 'Never Gonna Give You Up', by Rick Astley ~~~ Casting does not actually modify the instance or change its values. The underlying instance remains the same; it is simply treated and accessed as an instance of the type to which it has been cast. AnyObject can represent an instance of any class type. Any can represent an instance of any type at all, apart from function types. ~~~ let someObjects: AnyObject[] = [ Movie(name: "2001: A Space Odyssey", director: "Stanley Kubrick"), Movie(name: "Moon", director: "Duncan Jones"), Movie(name: "Alien", director: "Ridley Scott") ] for object in someObjects { let movie = object as Movie println("Movie: '\(movie.name)', dir. \(movie.director)") } // Movie: '2001: A Space Odyssey', dir. Stanley Kubrick // Movie: 'Moon', dir. Duncan Jones // Movie: 'Alien', dir. Ridley Scott for movie in someObjects as Movie[] { println("Movie: '\(movie.name)', dir. \(movie.director)") } // Movie: '2001: A Space Odyssey', dir. Stanley Kubrick // Movie: 'Moon', dir. Duncan Jones // Movie: 'Alien', dir. Ridley Scott ~~~ ~~~ var things = Any[]() things.append(0) things.append(0.0) things.append(42) things.append(3.14159) things.append("hello") things.append((3.0, 5.0)) things.append(Movie(name: "Ghostbusters", director: "Ivan Reitman”)) for thing in things { switch thing { case 0 as Int: println("zero as an Int") case 0 as Double: println("zero as a Double") case let someInt as Int: println("an integer value of \(someInt)") case let someDouble as Double where someDouble > 0: println("a positive double value of \(someDouble)") case is Double: println("some other double value that I don't want to print") case let someString as String: println("a string value of \"\(someString)\"") case let (x, y) as (Double, Double): println("an (x, y) point at \(x), \(y)") case let movie as Movie: println("a movie called '\(movie.name)', dir. \(movie.director)") default: println("something else") } } // zero as an Int // zero as a Double // an integer value of 42 // a positive double value of 3.14159 // a string value of "hello" // an (x, y) point at 3.0, 5.0 // a movie called 'Ghostbusters', dir. Ivan Reitman ~~~