[swift-users] Defer with local variable's state

[Joe Groff]

> On Aug 11, 2016, at 7:16 AM, Sebastian Hagedorn via swift-users <swift-users at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> We often write code that returns early, but has to make sure a bit of code (e.g., a completion handler) is always called whenever we return, which seems like a great use case for defer. I started to write this:
> 
> func execute(with completion: ((Bool) -> Void)?) {
> 	var success = false
> 	defer {
> 		// should always execute with the current state of success at that time
> 		completion?(success)
> 	}
> 
> 	guard … else {
> 		// completion is expected to be executed with false
> 		return
> 	}
> 
> 	success = true
> 
> 	// completion is expected to be executed with true
> }
> 
> However, it seems that defer copies the state of success, which means any update to the variable is not respected, and the completion block is always called with false.
> 
> Is there a way to make this work? I could image to call a function within the defer block that evaluates the success (e.g., depending on the state of an instance variable), but using a local variable seems to encapsulate this a lot better.

This is a bug. Defer should track updates of the variable. Would you mind filing this at bugs.swift.org? Do you happen to know whether it reproduces only in debug or release builds, or both?

-Joe