Swift how to use enum to get string value

Question

I have enum:

enum NewProgramDetails: String {
    case Description = "Description", ToMode = "To Mode", From = "From", To = "To", Days = "Days"

    static let allValues = [Description, ToMode, From, To, Days]
}

I want to use this enum to display in my cell depend on indexPath:

cell.textLabel.text = NewProgramDetails.ToMode

error: Cannot assign value of type 'ViewController.NewProgramDetails' to type 'String?'

How can I use enum values to assign it to label text as a string?

You need to access its rawValue. `cell.textLabel.text = NewProgramDetails.ToMode.rawValue` — Leo Dabus, Jul 27 '16 at 08:31
Btw No need to assign the same String to it if it is identical to its case. — Leo Dabus, Jul 27 '16 at 08:35
See also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24701075/swift-convert-enum-value-to-string — Martin R, Jul 27 '16 at 08:38

score 19 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 26 '17 at 09:08

19

In swift 3, you can use this

var enumValue = Customer.Physics
var str = String(describing: enumValue)

answered Jan 26 '17 at 09:08

Danil Shaykhutdinov

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2

Doesn't work for live values, apparently. Like `avplayeritem.status`. – Jonny Mar 27 '17 at 06:29
1

`String(describing:)` should *never* be used to convert anything to String, it's not its purpose and will give unexpected results in many cases. – Eric Aya Jun 20 '21 at 10:14

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '16 at 08:31

12

Use the rawValue of the enum:

cell.textLabel.text = NewProgramDetails.ToMode.rawValue

answered Jul 27 '16 at 08:31

vadian

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353
361

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 27 '16 at 08:40

Other than using rawValue,

NewProgramDetails.ToMode.rawValue // "To Mode"

you can also call String.init to get the enum value's string representation:

String(NewProgramDetails.ToMode)

This will return "ToMode", which can be a little bit different from the rawValue you assigned. But if you are lazy enough to not assign raw values, this String.init method can be used!

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 29 '22 at 22:49

I've posted a feedback to feedbackassistant with text:

/>

Code:

let test: AVCaptureDevice.Position = .back
print("This is fail: \(test)")

In debugger:

"This is fail: AVCaptureDevicePosition"

Expected:

"This is fail: back"
"This is fail: AVCaptureDevicePosition.back"
...

So the problem is that enum values with associated values doesn't printed. String(test), Mirror(reflecting: test), String(reflecting: test), String(describing: test) doesn't help too.

</

And here is the answer from apple:

This prints AVCaptureDevicePosition(rawValue: 1), i.e., not just the name of the enum, but the raw value too. Swift can't print the text version of this enum value because it doesn't have it at runtime. This is a C-style enum and so all we have is a number, unless we embedded string equivalent values for C enums into the binary, which we have no plans to do.

Swift how to use enum to get string value

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