if let shorthand for unwrapping optionals

Paul Hudson      @twostraws

SE-0345 introduces new shorthand syntax for unwrapping optionals into shadowed variables of the same name using if let and guard let. This means we can now write code like this:

var name: String? = "Linda"

if let name {
    print("Hello, \(name)!")
}

Whereas previously we would have written code more like this:

if let name = name {
    print("Hello, \(name)!")
}

if let unwrappedName = name {
    print("Hello, \(unwrappedName)!")
}        

This change doesn’t extend to properties inside objects, which means code like this will not work:

struct User {
    var name: String
}

let user: User? = User(name: "Linda")

if let user.name {
    print("Welcome, \(user.name)!")
}

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Other changes in Swift 5.7…

• Multi-statement closure type inference
• Clock, Instant, and Duration
• Regular expressions
• Type inference from default expressions
• Concurrency in top-level code
• Opaque parameter declarations
• Structural opaque result types
• Unlock existentials for all protocols
• Lightweight same-type requirements for primary associated types
• Constrained existential types
• Distributed actor isolation
• buildPartialBlock for result builders
• Implicitly opened existentials
• Unavailable from async attribute

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