Functions

Functions are self-contained blocks of code that perform a specific task.

In Swift, functions are first-class citizens, meaning that they can be stored, passed, and returned. Functions can be curried and defined as higher-order functions that take other functions as their arguments.

Functions in Swift can have multiple input parameters and multiple returns using tuples. Let's look at the following example:

func greet(name: String, day: String) ->String { 
    return "Hello \(name), today is \(day)" 
} 

greet(name: "Francois", day:"Saturday") 

Functions can have variadic parameters. Consider the following example:

// Variable number of arguments in functions - Variadic Parameters 
func sumOf(numbers: Int...) -> (Int, Int) { 
    var sum = 0 
    var counter = 0 
    for number in numbers { 
        sum += number 
        counter += 1 
    } 
    return (sum, counter) 
} 

sumOf() 
sumOf(numbers: 7, 9, 45) 

Functions can have in-out parameters. Consider the following example:

func swapTwoInts ( a: inout Int, b: inout Int) { 
    let temporaryA = a 
    a = b 
    b = temporaryA 
} 

The in-out parameters are not favorable in functional Swift as they mutate states and make functions impure.

In Swift, we can define nested functions. The following example presents a function named add nested inside another function. Nested functions can access the data in scope of their parent function. In this example, the add function has access to the y variable:

func returnTwenty() ->Int { 
    var y = 10 
    func add() { 
        y += 10 
    } 
    add() 
    return y 
} 

returnTwenty() 

In Swift, functions can return other functions. In the following example, the makeIncrementer function returns a function that receives an Int value and returns an Int value (Int ->Int):

func makeIncrementer() -> ((Int) ->Int) { 
    func addOne(number: Int) ->Int { 
        return 1 + number 
    } 
    return addOne 
} 

var increment = makeIncrementer() 
increment(7)