In-Out Parameters inout keyword

Posted 2020-11-08 zzfx

In-Out Parameters

In-out parameters are passed as follows:

1. When the function is called, the value of the argument is copied.

2. In the body of the function, the copy is modified.

3. When the function returns, the copy’s value is assigned to the original argument.

This behavior is known as copy-in copy-out or call by value result. For example, when a computed property or a property with observers is passed as an in-out parameter, its getter is called as part of the function call and its setter is called as part of the function return.

As an optimization, when the argument is a value stored at a physical address in memory, the same memory location is used both inside and outside the function body. The optimized behavior is known as call by reference; it satisfies all of the requirements of the copy-in copy-out model while removing the overhead of copying. Write your code using the model given by copy-in copy-out, without depending on the call-by-reference optimization, so that it behaves correctly with or without the optimization.

Within a function, don’t access a value that was passed as an in-out argument, even if the original value is available in the current scope. Accessing the original is a simultaneous access of the value, which violates Swift’s memory exclusivity guarantee. For the same reason, you can’t pass the same value to multiple in-out parameters.

For more information about memory safety and memory exclusivity, see Memory Safety.

A closure or nested function that captures an in-out parameter must be nonescaping. If you need to capture an in-out parameter without mutating it or to observe changes made by other code, use a capture list to explicitly capture the parameter immutably.

1. func someFunction(a: inout Int) -> () -> Int {
2. return { [a] in return a + 1 }
3. }

If you need to capture and mutate an in-out parameter, use an explicit local copy, such as in multithreaded code that ensures all mutation has finished before the function returns.

1. func multithreadedFunction(queue: DispatchQueue, x: inout Int) {
2. // Make a local copy and manually copy it back.
3. var localX = x
4. defer { x = localX }
6. // Operate on localX asynchronously, then wait before returning.
7. queue.async { someMutatingOperation(&localX) }
8. queue.sync {}
9. }

For more discussion and examples of in-out parameters, see In-Out Parameters.

 

In-Out Parameters

Function parameters are constants by default. Trying to change the value of a function parameter from within the body of that function results in a compile-time error. This means that you can’t change the value of a parameter by mistake. If you want a function to modify a parameter’s value, and you want those changes to persist after the function call has ended, define that parameter as an in-out parameter instead.

You write an in-out parameter by placing the inout keyword right before a parameter’s type. An in-out parameter has a value that is passed in to the function, is modified by the function, and is passed back out of the function to replace the original value. For a detailed discussion of the behavior of in-out parameters and associated compiler optimizations, see In-Out Parameters.

You can only pass a variable as the argument for an in-out parameter. You cannot pass a constant or a literal value as the argument, because constants and literals cannot be modified. You place an ampersand (&) directly before a variable’s name when you pass it as an argument to an in-out parameter, to indicate that it can be modified by the function.

NOTE

In-out parameters cannot have default values, and variadic parameters cannot be marked as inout.

Here’s an example of a function called swapTwoInts(_:_:), which has two in-out integer parameters called aand b:

1. func swapTwoInts(_ a: inout Int, _ b: inout Int) {
2. let temporaryA = a
3. a = b
4. b = temporaryA
5. }

The swapTwoInts(_:_:) function simply swaps the value of b into a, and the value of a into b. The function performs this swap by storing the value of a in a temporary constant called temporaryA, assigning the value of b to a, and then assigning temporaryA to b.

You can call the swapTwoInts(_:_:) function with two variables of type Int to swap their values. Note that the names of someInt and anotherInt are prefixed with an ampersand when they are passed to the swapTwoInts(_:_:) function:

1. var someInt = 3
2. var anotherInt = 107
3. swapTwoInts(&someInt, &anotherInt)
4. print("someInt is now \(someInt), and anotherInt is now \(anotherInt)")
5. // Prints "someInt is now 107, and anotherInt is now 3"

The example above shows that the original values of someInt and anotherInt are modified by the swapTwoInts(_:_:) function, even though they were originally defined outside of the function.

NOTE

In-out parameters are not the same as returning a value from a function. The swapTwoInts example above does not define a return type or return a value, but it still modifies the values of someInt and anotherInt. In-out parameters are an alternative way for a function to have an effect outside of the scope of its function body.