Swift: How to expand a tilde in a path String

Question

How can I expand a path String with a tilde in Swift? I have a string like \"~/Desktop\" and I\'d like to use this path with the NSFileManager methods,

Answer 1

Tilde expansion

Swift 1

"~/Desktop".stringByExpandingTildeInPath

Swift 2

NSString(string: "~/Desktop").stringByExpandingTildeInPath

Swift 3

NSString(string: "~/Desktop").expandingTildeInPath

Home Directory

Additionally you can get the home directory like this (returns a String/String?):

NSHomeDirectory()
NSHomeDirectoryForUser("")

In Swift 3 and OS X 10.12 it's also possible to use this (returns a URL/URL?):

FileManager.default().homeDirectoryForCurrentUser
FileManager.default().homeDirectory(forUser: "")

Edit: In Swift 3.1 this got changed to FileManager.default.homeDirectoryForCurrentUser