[swift-evolution] Why does URL.checkResourceIsReachable() return a Bool?

[Charles Srstka]

-[NSURL checkResourceIsReachableAndReturnError:] has taken on several forms in Swift during its development, sometimes returning a Boolean and an error by reference, sometimes returning Void and using Swift’s do/try/catch system. In Swift 3, though, it appears to do both, which is weird:

func checkResourceIsReachable() throws -> Bool

All the documentation has to say about this is:

"This method is currently applicable only to URLs for file system resources. For other URL types, false is returned.”

It does not, however, say whether non-file URLs are the only thing that can cause a return of ‘false’, so I don’t know whether I should be checking the return value when checking a file URL or not. This results in having to check both the return value *and* the catch block each time, which is fairly awkward. I’m also not clear on why checking reachability on a non-file URL can’t just return an error like it did in the past.

What’s the rationale behind this?

Charles



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