Get the length of a String

How do you get the length of a `String`? For example, I have a variable defined like:

var test1: String = "Scott"

However, I can't seem to find a length method on the string.

Here's something shorter, and more natural than using a global function:

aString.utf16count

I don't know if it's available in beta 1, though. But it's definitely there in beta 2.

If you are just trying to see if a string is empty or not (checking for length of 0), Swift offers a simple boolean test method on `String`

myString.isEmpty

The other side of this coin was people asking in ObjectiveC how to ask if a string was empty where the answer was to check for a length of 0:

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var str = "Hello, playground"
var newString = str as NSString

countElements(str)
This counts the characters in Regular Swift String

countElements((newString as String))
This counts the characters in a NSString

Updated for Xcode 6 beta 4, change method utf16count --> utf16Count

var test1: String = "Scott"
var length = test1.utf16Count
Or

var test1: String = "Scott"
var length = test1.lengthOfBytesUsingEncoding(NSUTF16StringEncoding)

If you are looking for a cleaner way to get length of a string checkout this library which has bunch of extensions to the Swift built in classes

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Using this library you can just do `"Some Str".length`

As of Swift 1.2 `utf16Count` has been removed. You should now use the global `count()` function and pass the UTF16 view of the string. Example below...

let string = "Some string"
count(string.utf16)

Best way to count String in Swift is this:

var str = "Hello World"
var length = count(str.utf16)

String and NSString are toll free bridge so you can use all methods available to NSString with swift String

let x = "test" as NSString
let y : NSString = "string 2"
let lenx = x.count
let leny = y.count

Using **Xcode 6.4**, **Swift 1.2** and **iOS 8.4**:

//: Playground - noun: a place where people can play

import UIKit

var str = " He\u{2606} "
count(str) // 7

let length = count(str.stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet(NSCharacterSet.whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet())) as Int // 3
println(length == 3) // true