Swift Text File To Array of Strings

Question

I was wondering what the simplest and cleanest to read a text file into an array of strings is in swift.

Text file:

line 1
line 2
line 3 
line 4

Into an array like this:

var array = ["line 1","line 2","line 3","line 4"]

I would also like to know how to do a similar thing into struct like this:

Struct struct{
   var name: String!
   var email: String!
}

so take a text file and put it into struct's in an array.

Thanks for the help!

Solution 1

First you must read the file:

let text = String(contentsOfFile: someFile, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding, error: nil)

Then you separate it by line using the componentsSeparatedByString method:

let lines : [String] = text.componentsSeparatedByString("\n")

Solution 2

Updated for Swift 3

    var arrayOfStrings: [String]?

    do {
        // This solution assumes  you've got the file in your bundle
        if let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "YourTextFilename", ofType: "txt"){
            let data = try String(contentsOfFile:path, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8)                
            arrayOfStrings = data.components(separatedBy: "\n")
            print(arrayOfStrings)
        }
    } catch let err as NSError {
        // do something with Error
        print(err)
    }

Solution 3

Updated for Swift 5:

The const path contains the file path.

do {
    let path: String = "file.txt"
    let file = try String(contentsOfFile: path)
    let text: [String] = file.components(separatedBy: "\n")
} catch let error {
    Swift.print("Fatal Error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
}

If you want to print what's inside of file.txt line by line:

for line in text {
    Swift.print(line)
}

Solution 4

Swift 4:

do {
    let contents = try String(contentsOfFile: file, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8)
    let lines : [String] = contents.components(separatedBy: "\n")    
} catch let error as NSError {
    print(error.localizedDescription)
}

Solution 5

Here is a way to convert a string to an array(Once you read in the text):

var myString = "Here is my string"

var myArray : [String] = myString.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")

This returns a string array with the following values: ["Here", "is", "my", "string"]

View more solutions

Comments

[Suragch]

See this post for an excellent discussion on the options for converting a text file to a line array. codereview.stackexchange.com/a/100813/79551

[Suragch]

Note that some files do not just \n as the new line marker. You can consider using NSCharacterSet.newlineCharacterSet() and componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet.

[thumbtackthief]

new Swift syntax would be: try! let text = String(contentsOfFile: someFile!, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) stackoverflow.com/questions/32663872/…

[esaruoho]

is there a version for swift5 out there somewhere? :)

[esaruoho]

is there a version for swift5 out there somewhere? :)

[esaruoho]

is there a version for swift5 out there somewhere? :)

[esaruoho]

thanks muchly! :) and how would i be able to output that content into an Array? (one textfile, one Array)