<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Feb 13, 2017, at 9:33 PM, Jeff Kelley via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></blockquote><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Hi all,</span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span class="gmail-Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don’t have a formal proposal written up yet, but in my continued quest to make better-annotated Objective-C code, I had an idea for bridging<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">nil</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with primitives. Since in Objective-C we often use constant values to represent invalid values or <font face="monospace, monospace" class="">nil</font>, the most obvious being<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">NSNotFound</font>, could we use that as a shorthand for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">nil</font>? Something like this for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">NSArray</font>:</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">- (NSUInteger NS_SWIFT_NIL(NSNotFound))indexOfObject:(ObjectType)anObject;</font></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span class="gmail-Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is a little verbose, so it could also work with a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">typedef</font>:</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">typedef NSUInteger NS_SWIFT_NIL(NSNotFound) NSArrayIndex;</font></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">- (NSArrayIndex)indexOfObject:(ObjectType)anObject;</font><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This would change the existing Swift interface to return an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">Int?</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>instead of an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">Int</font>. I see this as working both ways—converting these values to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">nil</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>when returning from Objective-C to Swift, and sending these values instead of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><font face="monospace, monospace" class="">nil</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>when Swift calls into Objective-C code.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Is this worth writing up a proposal for? Is another, better method already in someone’s mind?</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">What happens if code on the Swift side sets the property’s value to the sentinel?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Charles</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>