Type Inference

Simply put, the type of an object can be inferred from its value.

The full (long) way of declaring a String for instance would be:

let song: String = "Champions again as you know!"

Swift is smart enough however to know that song should be a String and we therefore can remove the type and simply put:

let song = "Champions again as you know!"

This can be used on any type, such as Int:

Full declaration:

let titlesInARow: Int = 8

With type Inference:

let titlesInARow = 8

We do however need to give the object a type if we do not give it a default value as Swift does not know what the type will be:

let newSigning: String

Swift will also what to know the type if there is any ambiguity:

let distance = 2.3

var newDistance: Float = result

The above will not compile with the error Cannot convert value of type 'Double' to specified type 'Float'. Swift will infer that the type of distance is Double so we must give it a type upon declaration.

let distance: Float = 2.3

var newDistance: Float = result

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