Split a String into an array in Swift?

The Swift way is to use the global `split` function, like so:

var fullName = "First Last"
var fullNameArr = split(fullName) {$0 == " "}
var firstName: String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName: String? = fullNameArr.count > 1 ? fullNameArr[1] : nil

with **Swift 2**

In Swift 2 the use of split becomes a bit more complicated due to the introduction of the internal CharacterView type. This means that String no longer adopts the SequenceType or CollectionType protocols and you must instead use the `.characters` property to access a CharacterView type representation of a String instance. (Note: CharacterView does adopt SequenceType and CollectionType protocols).

let fullName = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{$0 == " "}.map(String.init)
// or simply:
// let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{" "}.map(String.init)

fullNameArr[0] // First
fullNameArr[1] // Last

Just call `componentsSeparatedByString` method on your `fullName`

import Foundation

var fullName: String = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")

var firstName: String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName: String = fullNameArr[1]

**Update for Swift 3+**

import Foundation

let fullName = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.components(separatedBy: " ")

let name = fullNameArr[0]
let surname = fullNameArr[1]

**Xcode 8.0 / Swift 3**

let fullName = "First Last"
var fullNameArr = fullName.components(separatedBy: " ")

var firstname = fullNameArr[0] // First
var lastname = fullNameArr[1] // Last


Long Way:

var fullName: String = "First Last"
fullName += " " // this will help to see the last word

var newElement = "" //Empty String
var fullNameArr = [String]() //Empty Array

for Character in fullName.characters {
if Character == " " {
fullNameArr.append(newElement)
newElement = ""
} else {
newElement += "\(Character)"
}
}


var firsName = fullNameArr[0] // First
var lastName = fullNameArr[1] // Last


[1]:

Most of these answers assume the input contains a space - not **white**space, and a single space at that. If you can safely make that assumption, then the accepted answer (from bennett) is quite elegant and also the method I'll be going with when I can.

When we can't make that assumption, a more robust solution needs to cover the following siutations that most answers here don't consider:

- tabs/newlines/spaces (whitespace), including **recurring** characters
- leading/trailing whitespace
- Apple/Linux (`\n`) **and** Windows (`\r\n`) newline characters

To cover these cases this solution uses regex to convert all whitespace (including recurring and Windows newline characters) to a single space, trims, then splits by a single space:

**Swift 3:**

let searchInput = " First \r\n \n \t\t\tMiddle Last "
let searchTerms = searchInput
.replacingOccurrences(
of: "\\s+",
with: " ",
options: .regularExpression
)
.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespaces)
.components(separatedBy: " ")

// searchTerms == ["First", "Middle", "Last"]

String handling is still a challenge in Swift and it keeps changing significantly, as you can see from other answers. Hopefully things settle down and it gets simpler. This is the way to do it with the current 3.0 version of Swift with multiple separator characters.

**Swift 3:**

let chars = CharacterSet(charactersIn: ".,; -")
let split = phrase.components(separatedBy: chars)

// Or if the enums do what you want, these are preferred.
let chars2 = CharacterSet.alphaNumerics // .whitespaces, .punctuation, .capitalizedLetters etc
let split2 = phrase.components(separatedBy: chars2)

**Swift Dev. 4.0 (May 24, 2017)**

A new function `split` in Swift 4 (**Beta**).

import Foundation
let sayHello = "Hello Swift 4 2017";
let result = sayHello.split(separator: " ")
print(result)

Output:

["Hello", "Swift", "4", "2017"]

Accessing values:

print(result[0]) // Hello
print(result[1]) // Swift
print(result[2]) // 4
print(result[3]) // 2017

**Xcode 8.1 / Swift 3.0.1**

Here is the way multiple delimiters with array.

<!-- language: swift -->

import Foundation
let mathString: String = "12-37*2/5"
let numbers = mathString.components(separatedBy: ["-", "*", "/"])
print(numbers)

Output:

<!-- language: swift -->

["12", "37", "2", "5"]

I haven't found the solution that would handle names with 3 or more components and support older iOS versions.

struct NameComponentsSplitter {

static func split(fullName: String) -> (String?, String?) {
guard !fullName.isEmpty else {
return (nil, nil)
}
let components = fullName.components(separatedBy: .whitespacesAndNewlines)
let lastName = components.last
let firstName = components.dropLast().joined(separator: " ")
return (firstName.isEmpty ? nil : firstName, lastName)
}
}

Passed test cases:

func testThatItHandlesTwoComponents() {
let (firstName, lastName) = NameComponentsSplitter.split(fullName: "John Smith")
XCTAssertEqual(firstName, "John")
XCTAssertEqual(lastName, "Smith")
}

func testThatItHandlesMoreThanTwoComponents() {
var (firstName, lastName) = NameComponentsSplitter.split(fullName: "John Clark Smith")
XCTAssertEqual(firstName, "John Clark")
XCTAssertEqual(lastName, "Smith")

(firstName, lastName) = NameComponentsSplitter.split(fullName: "John Clark Jr. Smith")
XCTAssertEqual(firstName, "John Clark Jr.")
XCTAssertEqual(lastName, "Smith")
}

func testThatItHandlesEmptyInput() {
let (firstName, lastName) = NameComponentsSplitter.split(fullName: "")
XCTAssertEqual(firstName, nil)
XCTAssertEqual(lastName, nil)
}

let fullName : String = "Steve.Jobs"
let fullNameArr : [String] = fullName.components(separatedBy: ".")

var firstName : String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName : String = fullNameArr[1]

*The easiest method to do this is by using componentsSeparatedBy:*

**For Swift 2:**


import Foundation
let fullName : String = "First Last";
let fullNameArr : [String] = fullName.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")

// And then to access the individual words:

var firstName : String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName : String = fullNameArr[1]

**For Swift 3:**

import Foundation

let fullName : String = "First Last"
let fullNameArr : [String] = fullName.components(separatedBy: " ")

// And then to access the individual words:

var firstName : String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName : String = fullNameArr[1]

[1]:

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**Swift 3**

let line = "AAA BBB\t CCC"
let fields = line.components(separatedBy: .whitespaces).filter {!$0.isEmpty}

- Returns three strings `AAA`, `BBB` and `CCC`
- Filters out empty fields
- Handles multiple spaces and tabulation characters
- If you want to handle new lines, then replace `.whitespaces` with `.whitespacesAndNewlines`