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Creates a mirror representing the given subject with a specified structure.

You use this initializer from within your type's customMirror implementation to create a customized mirror.

If subject is a class instance, ancestorRepresentation determines whether ancestor classes will be represented and whether their customMirror implementations will be used. By default, the customMirror implementation of any ancestors is ignored. To prevent bypassing customized ancestors, pass .customized({ super.customMirror }) as the ancestorRepresentation parameter when implementing your type's customMirror property.

Declaration

Creates a mirror representing the given subject using a dictionary literal for the structure.

You use this initializer from within your type's customMirror implementation to create a customized mirror. Pass a dictionary literal with string keys as children. Although an actual dictionary is arbitrarily-ordered, when you create a mirror with a dictionary literal, the ordering of the mirror's children will exactly match that of the literal you pass.

If subject is a class instance, ancestorRepresentation determines whether ancestor classes will be represented and whether their customMirror implementations will be used. By default, the customMirror implementation of any ancestors is ignored. To prevent bypassing customized ancestors, pass .customized({ super.customMirror }) as the ancestorRepresentation parameter when implementing your type's customMirror property.

Declaration

Creates a mirror representing the given subject with unlabeled children.

You use this initializer from within your type's customMirror implementation to create a customized mirror, particularly for custom types that are collections. The labels of the resulting mirror's children collection are all nil.

If subject is a class instance, ancestorRepresentation determines whether ancestor classes will be represented and whether their customMirror implementations will be used. By default, the customMirror implementation of any ancestors is ignored. To prevent bypassing customized ancestors, pass .customized({ super.customMirror }) as the ancestorRepresentation parameter when implementing your type's customMirror property.

Declaration

Creates a mirror that reflects on the given instance.

If the dynamic type of subject conforms to CustomReflectable, the resulting mirror is determined by its customMirror property. Otherwise, the result is generated by the language.

If the dynamic type of subject has value semantics, subsequent mutations of subject will not observable in Mirror. In general, though, the observability of mutations is unspecified.

• Parameter subject: The instance for which to create a mirror.

Declaration

A collection of Child elements describing the structure of the reflected subject.

Declaration

The custom mirror for this instance.

If this type has value semantics, the mirror should be unaffected by subsequent mutations of the instance.

Declaration

A textual representation of this instance.

Calling this property directly is discouraged. Instead, convert an instance of any type to a string by using the String(describing:) initializer. This initializer works with any type, and uses the custom description property for types that conform to CustomStringConvertible:

struct Point: CustomStringConvertible {
    let x: Int, y: Int
 
    var description: String {
        return "(\(x), \(y))"
    }
}
 
let p = Point(x: 21, y: 30)
let s = String(describing: p)
print(s)
// Prints "(21, 30)"

The conversion of p to a string in the assignment to s uses the Point type's description property.

Declaration

A suggested display style for the reflected subject.

Declaration

The static type of the subject being reflected.

This type may differ from the subject's dynamic type when this mirror is the superclassMirror of another mirror.

Declaration

A mirror of the subject's superclass, if one exists.

Declaration

Returns a specific descendant of the reflected subject, or nil if no such descendant exists.

Pass a variadic list of string and integer arguments. Each string argument selects the first child with a matching label. Each integer argument selects the child at that offset. For example, passing 1, "two", 3 as arguments to myMirror.descendant(_:_:) is equivalent to:

var result: Any? = nil
let children = myMirror.children
if let i0 = children.index(
    children.startIndex, offsetBy: 1, limitedBy: children.endIndex),
    i0 != children.endIndex
{
    let grandChildren = Mirror(reflecting: children[i0].value).children
    if let i1 = grandChildren.firstIndex(where: { $0.label == "two" }) {
        let greatGrandChildren =
            Mirror(reflecting: grandChildren[i1].value).children
        if let i2 = greatGrandChildren.index(
            greatGrandChildren.startIndex,
            offsetBy: 3,
            limitedBy: greatGrandChildren.endIndex),
            i2 != greatGrandChildren.endIndex
        {
            // Success!
            result = greatGrandChildren[i2].value
        }
    }
}

This function is suitable for exploring the structure of a mirror in a REPL or playground, but is not intended to be efficient. The efficiency of finding each element in the argument list depends on the argument type and the capabilities of the each level of the mirror's children collections. Each string argument requires a linear search, and unless the underlying collection supports random-access traversal, each integer argument also requires a linear operation.

Declaration