Swift - Remove " character from string

Question

I have a string which is "Optional("5")". I need to remove the "" surrounding the 5. I have removed the Optional by doing:

text2 = text2.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("Optional(", withString: "", options: NSStringCompareOptions.LiteralSearch, range: nil)

I am having difficulties removing the " characters as they designate the end of a string in the code.

If the string actually consists of the characters `Optional("5")` then probably something went wrong earlier, because that is the *description* of an optional string. It would make more sense to unwrap the optional before assigning to `text2`, instead of removing the "Optional(..)" textually. — Martin R, Aug 31 '14 at 11:05

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-06T12:37:48.177

189

Swift uses backslash to escape double quotes. Here is the list of escaped special characters in Swift:

\0 (null character)

\\ (backslash)

\t (horizontal tab)

\n (line feed)

\r (carriage return)

\" (double quote)

\' (single quote)

This should work:

text2 = text2.replacingOccurrences(of: "\\", with: "", options: NSString.CompareOptions.literal, range: nil)

edited Feb 06 '18 at 12:37

answered Aug 31 '14 at 10:55

Sergey Kalinichenko

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Unfortunately with Swift 1.2, this doesn't seem to work on 32 bit devices. – PassKit Apr 27 '15 at 11:58
1

@GerardGrundy Thank you very much for the comment! I updated the answer to make it compatible with the modern version of Swift. – Sergey Kalinichenko Feb 06 '18 at 12:38
@Sergey Kalinichenko Hi, how can I remove multiple character sets for one string? For example I want to delete ".mp3" or ".m4a" depending on what the string contains. How can I do it? – VyacheslavBakinkskiy Dec 03 '20 at 11:34
@VyacheslavBakinkskiy https://stackoverflow.com/a/71977992/5967144 – Soorej Babu Apr 23 '22 at 08:19

Alessandro Ornano · Answer 2 · 2017-10-10T06:12:11.107

Swift 3 and Swift 4:

text2 = text2.textureName.replacingOccurrences(of: "\"", with: "", options: NSString.CompareOptions.literal, range:nil)

Latest documents updated to Swift 3.0.1 have:

Null Character (\0)

Backslash (\\)

Horizontal Tab (\t)

Line Feed (\n)

Carriage Return (\r)

Double Quote (\")

Single Quote (\')

Unicode scalar (\u{n}), where n is between one and eight hexadecimal digits

If you need more details you can take a look to the official docs here

score 39 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 10 '19 at 20:54

39

Here is the swift 3 updated answer

var editedText = myLabel.text?.replacingOccurrences(of: "\"", with: "")

Null Character (\0)
Backslash (\\)
Horizontal Tab (\t)
Line Feed (\n)
Carriage Return (\r)
Double Quote (\")
Single Quote (\')
Unicode scalar (\u{n})

edited Jun 10 '19 at 20:54

pkamb

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answered Jun 15 '17 at 06:33

Mudith Chathuranga Silva

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This is a much cleaner way of doing it. – Super_Simon Apr 13 '18 at 22:50

Luc-Olivier · Answer 4 · 2020-01-02T16:24:47.463

9

Replacing for Removing is not quite logical. String.filter allows to iterate a string char by char and keep only true assertion.

Swift 4 & 5

var aString = "Optional(\"5\")"

aString = aString.filter { $0 != "\"" }

> Optional(5)

Or to extend

var aString = "Optional(\"5\")"

let filteredChars = "\"\n\t"

aString = aString.filter { filteredChars.range(of: String($0)) == nil }

> Optional(5)

edited Jan 02 '20 at 16:24

answered Oct 26 '19 at 09:52

Luc-Olivier

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Sorry Luc, your second example gives an error message. Argument type 'String.Element' (aka 'Character') does not conform to expected type 'StringProtocol'.. I guess you missed something? – user3069232 Dec 31 '19 at 17:12

score 8 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 23 '17 at 17:45

8

To remove the optional you only should do this

println("\(text2!)")

cause if you dont use "!" it takes the optional value of text2

And to remove "" from 5 you have to convert it to NSInteger or NSNumber easy peasy. It has "" cause its an string.

edited Jan 23 '17 at 17:45

Dan Beaulieu

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answered Jan 05 '15 at 13:01

Norolim

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should check it's not nil first, otherwise this will raise an exception. – CW0007007 Aug 30 '17 at 07:58

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 05:34

8

I've eventually got this to work in the playground, having multiple characters I'm trying to remove from a string:

var otherstring = "lat\" : 40.7127837,\n"
var new = otherstring.stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet(NSCharacterSet.init(charactersInString: "la t, \n \" ':"))
count(new) //result = 10
println(new) 
//yielding what I'm after just the numeric portion 40.7127837

answered Jul 23 '15 at 05:34

Getafix

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Could you please clarify: what is question being asked here? – milez Jul 23 '15 at 05:38

score 8 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 14 '19 at 09:35

8

If you want to remove more characters for example "a", "A", "b", "B", "c", "C" from string you can do it this way:

someString = someString.replacingOccurrences(of: "[abc]", with: "", options: [.regularExpression, .caseInsensitive])

answered Jan 14 '19 at 09:35

Grzegorz R. Kulesza

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score 4 · Answer 8 · edited Feb 10 '16 at 06:25

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As Martin R says, your string "Optional("5")" looks like you did something wrong.

dasblinkenlight answers you so it is fine, but for future readers, I will try to add alternative code as:

if let realString = yourOriginalString {
    text2 = realString
} else {
    text2 = ""
}

text2 in your example looks like String and it is maybe already set to "" but it looks like you have an yourOriginalString of type Optional(String) somewhere that it wasn't cast or use correctly.

I hope this can help some reader.

edited Feb 10 '16 at 06:25

Taylor M

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answered Dec 15 '14 at 10:37

Dam

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That could be simplified a bit more with the nil-coalescing operator, e.g. `let resultingString = optionalString ?? ""`. – Kilian Jul 01 '16 at 20:46

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 30 '18 at 08:10

Let's say you have a string:

var string = "potatoes + carrots"

And you want to replace the word "potatoes" in that string with "tomatoes"

string = string.replacingOccurrences(of: "potatoes", with: "tomatoes", options: NSString.CompareOptions.literal, range: nil)

If you print your string, it will now be: "tomatoes + carrots"

If you want to remove the word potatoes from the sting altogether, you can use:

string = string.replacingOccurrences(of: "potatoes", with: "", options: NSString.CompareOptions.literal, range: nil)

If you want to use some other characters in your sting, use:

Null Character (\0)

Backslash (\)

Horizontal Tab (\t)

Line Feed (\n)

Carriage Return (\r)

Double Quote (\")

Single Quote (\')

Example:

string = string.replacingOccurrences(of: "potatoes", with: "dog\'s toys", options: NSString.CompareOptions.literal, range: nil)

Output: "dog's toys + carrots"

This is the simplest and most effective way to do this. Instead changes the variable itself instead of making a new one. I tried hard to explain this in the best way possible so please remember to upvote this answer. — Mini Official, Aug 30 '18 at 08:12

Soorej Babu · Answer 10 · 2022-11-01T07:44:50.540

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Swift 5 (working). Only 1 line code.

For removing single / multiple characters.

trimmingCharacters(in: CharacterSet)

In action:

var yourString:String = "(\"This Is: Your String\")"
yourString = yourString.trimmingCharacters(in: ["("," ",":","\"",")"])
print(yourString)

Output:

ThisIsYourString

You are entering a Set that contains characters you're required to trim.

edited Nov 01 '22 at 07:44

answered Apr 23 '22 at 08:18

Soorej Babu

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This is wrong answer. Trimming function removes characters only from start and end of string, leaves them inside string. – Anton Mar 11 '23 at 09:40

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Feb 18 '21 at 17:15

If you are getting the output Optional(5) when trying to print the value of 5 in an optional Int or String, you should unwrap the value first:

if value != nil
{ print(value)
}

or you can use this:

if let value = text {
    print(value)
}

or in simple just 1 line answer:

print(value ?? "")

The last line will check if variable 'value' has any value assigned to it, if not it will print empty string

Mojtaba Hosseini · Answer 12 · 2023-02-27T14:33:01.470

You can eighter escape characters with a \ or use # and here is how:

Swift 5

ou can use # symbol to specify a custom string delimiter.

When you use # with a string it affects the way Swift understands special characters in the string: \ no longer acts as an escape character, so \n literally means a “backslash“ than an “n” rather than a line break, and \(variable) will be included as those characters rather than using string interpolation.

So, these two strings are identical:

let regularString = "Optional(\"5\")"

let rawString = #"Optional("5")"#

score -1 · Answer 13 · answered May 20 '19 at 15:33

If you are getting the output Optional(5) when trying to print the value of 5 in an optional Int or String, you should unwrap the value first:

if let value = text {
    print(value)
}

Now you've got the value without the "Optional" string that Swift adds when the value is not unwrapped before.

Swift - Remove " character from string

13 Answers13

Swift 3 and Swift 4:

Swift 5

Linked