Null, nil and pointers

Note: This article is obsolete for the later versions of Swift.

Optional in Swift have made the use of "non-existing" values easier and safer. However sometimes things can get confusing at the low level APIs that use pointers to pointers.

In most instances we can now use nil were previously null was used.

For example in this API:

func URLForDirectory(_ directory: NSSearchPathDirectory,
            inDomain domain: NSSearchPathDomainMask,
   appropriateForURL url: NSURL?,
              create shouldCreate: Bool,
               error error: NSErrorPointer) -> NSURL?

The appropriateForURL parameter is specified as an optional and can thus safely be specified as a nil.

This call also makes use of the error parameter, which is specified as a NSErrorPointer. This behaves very much like an optional, even though it is not. We can use nil here as well if we do not want to use the error parameter.

At lower level APIs nil is usable as well, for example:

func getaddrinfo(_: UnsafePointer<Int8>,

                 _: UnsafePointer<Int8>,

                 _: UnsafePointer<addrinfo>,

                 _: UnsafeMutablePointer<UnsafeMutablePointer<addrinfo>>) -> Int32

In the first parameter in this function nil can be used, but in the last parameter we may want to use a pointer to a nil, which I have not found possible to construct. But there is a way out, the pointer definitions include a ".null()" function which returns a null-pointer.

In the above example we can pass a pointer to a nul pointer by doing it like this:

    // For the result from the getaddrinfo

    

    var servinfo = UnsafeMutablePointer<addrinfo>.null()

    

    

    // Get the info we need to create our socket descriptor

    

    status = getaddrinfo(

        nil,                        // Any interface

        servicePortNumber,          // The port on which will be listenend

        &hints,                     // Protocol configuration

        &servinfo)                  // The created information

Now the getaddrinfo function has a pointer to a null pointer which it can update to provide the requested information.

As mentioned before, be sure to define the reference servinfo as a 'var' not as a 'let'. Otherwise the '&' won't work.

Happy coding...

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