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You're reading from  Learning Swift Second Edition - Second Edition

Product typeBook
Published inMar 2016
Reading LevelBeginner
Publisher
ISBN-139781785887512
Edition2nd Edition
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Andrew J Wagner
Andrew J Wagner
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Andrew J Wagner

Contacted on 5 Aug 16 Andrew J Wagner is a software developer who concentrates on iOS development and backend web services. He has a degree in computer engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. Currently, he works for a development shop based in Denver, CO named Chronos Interactive. He has experience working with and for large-scale companies and small-scale companies as well as running his own contracting and app companies. He is passionate about using computers as a creative outlet and writing software that is beautiful in implementation, functionality, and experience. When he isn't working or spending time with friends and family, he writes for his blog at http://drewag.me. I would like to thank my friends and family for being there for me as support for both my troubles and triumphs. Without their encouragement, I would not have finished this book or achieved any of the other things in my life that make me proud. An especially big thanks to my parents, Fern and Joe, for continually providing me the the tools I need to do the things I love.
Read more about Andrew J Wagner

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Protocols


The first tool we will look at is protocols. A protocol is essentially a contract that a type can sign, specifying that it will provide a certain interface to other components. This relationship is significantly looser than the relationship a subclass has with its superclass. A protocol does not provide any implementation to the types that implement them. Instead, a type can implement them in any way that they like.

Let's take a look at how we define a protocol, in order to understand them better.

Defining a protocol

Let's say we have some code that needs to interact with a collection of strings. We don't actually care what order they are stored in and we only need to be able to add and enumerate elements inside the container. One option would be to simply use an array, but an array does way more than we need it to. What if we decide later that we would rather write and read the elements from the file system? Furthermore, what if we want to write a container that would intelligently...

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Learning Swift Second Edition - Second Edition
Published in: Mar 2016Publisher: ISBN-13: 9781785887512

Author (1)

author image
Andrew J Wagner

Contacted on 5 Aug 16 Andrew J Wagner is a software developer who concentrates on iOS development and backend web services. He has a degree in computer engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. Currently, he works for a development shop based in Denver, CO named Chronos Interactive. He has experience working with and for large-scale companies and small-scale companies as well as running his own contracting and app companies. He is passionate about using computers as a creative outlet and writing software that is beautiful in implementation, functionality, and experience. When he isn't working or spending time with friends and family, he writes for his blog at http://drewag.me. I would like to thank my friends and family for being there for me as support for both my troubles and triumphs. Without their encouragement, I would not have finished this book or achieved any of the other things in my life that make me proud. An especially big thanks to my parents, Fern and Joe, for continually providing me the the tools I need to do the things I love.
Read more about Andrew J Wagner