[swift-users] Instantiate Swift class from string

[Jens Alfke]

> On Dec 10, 2015, at 7:26 AM, Harlan Haskins via swift-users <swift-users at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> IIRC this isn’t possible because there’s no Runtime to query for classnames (it’s inherently unsafe anyway).

It’s not unsafe if you specify a base class/protocol that the loaded class must conform to.

> You might want to look into a better way of doing that you’re trying to do.

I disagree with “a better way” — “a workaround” is how I’d rephrase it. This kind of dynamism is often the best tool for the job, and a lot of Cocoa developers are frustrated by its absence in Swift. For example, there’s a series of blog posts from earlier this year by the highly respected Brent Simmons [NetNewsWire, MarsEdit, Glassboard, etc., currently at Omni]:
	http://inessential.com/swiftdiary
	http://inessential.com/2015/07/20/swift_diary_1_class_or_struct_from_str

The workaround I’d suggest is a factory function that contains a switch statement that matches class names and returns newly initialized instances.

—Jens
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