I'm an experienced C, C++, and Java programmer looking to port an app to the iOS environment. I'm learning Swift by using three sources: the Swift iOS 24-hour Trainer, the Apple documentation at https://developer.apple.com/library/...age/index.html, and testing using a playground on my Mac Mini.

I'm finding Swift's handling of parameters in function calls bizarre. I think neither the book nor the Apple pages explain it well.

From what I've been able to suss out, function parameters may be either positional as in myPositionalFunc(1,2,3) or named as in myNamedFunc(x:1,y:2,z:3). The name MUST NOT appear in the call if the parameter is positional, and the name MUST appear if the parameter is named, i.e., there's no choice about whether or not to include the name in the call.

The first parameter is different from the second and following parameters. The first parameter is positional by default, but it is named if the function definition is declared with an external name.

The second and following parameters are named by default, but they are positional if the function definition is declared with an external name of "_".

init() seems to be a special case. All parameters are named by default.

Is there anywhere in the book or the Apple documentation I can go to see if my analysis of this behavior is correct?

Hi JerryAgin,

The manner in which parameters will be handled in Swift 3 is different from that in 2.2. Swift 3 will be released along with Xcode 8 and iOS 10 in fall this year.

If you still want a Swift 2.2 answer, please let me know. If you'd rather wait for Swift 3 then I can answer your question a few days later.

I'm doing some further reading. https://developer.apple.com/library/...015214-CH3-SW1 pretty much verifies what I thought about how args work.

I'm getting the impression that Objective-C also works that way. Since I'm coming from a different programming background, it's something I didn't expect to see.

So they're going to change the language? Sounds to me like an even bigger can of worms!