Swift Programming Tutorial: Optional Chaining

Quickly Understand Swift Optional Chaining

Photo by Jose Fontano on Unsplash

This article is part of my Swift Programming Tutorial series.

To keep this tutorial short, I’ll assume you already have a basic foundation in Swift programming, especially with concepts like optionals and instances, such as classes.

Think of optional chaining as the language’s polite way of checking if a value is there before barging in and using it.

Picture this: optional chaining is like knocking on a door before entering a room. Imagine you have a friend named Bob who might live in an apartment, and Bob might have a pet cat. But maybe he doesn’t have an apartment at all, and if he does, maybe he has a dog or, no pet at all. With optional chaining, you can ask Swift if Bob has an apartment and if that apartment has a dog — without risking an awkward moment if either one’s missing.

The Syntax

Here’s the magical part: you just use a question mark (?) to keep things civil. Here’s what that might look like:

let catNameInBobApartment = bob.apartment?.cat?.name

Let’s break this down like we’re investigating a mystery. Here’s what Swift is doing:

1. “Does Bob have an apartment?” Swift checks…