Generate random alphanumeric string in Swift

Question

How can I generate a random alphanumeric string in Swift?

Answer 1

Updated for Swift 4. Use a lazy stored variable on the class extension. This only gets computed once.

extension String {

    static var chars: [Character] = {
        return "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789".map({$0})
    }()

    static func random(length: Int) -> String {
        var partial: [Character] = []

        for _ in 0..<length {
            let rand = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(chars.count)))
            partial.append(chars[rand])
        }

        return String(partial)
    }
}

String.random(length: 10) //STQp9JQxoq

Answer 2

A pure Swift random String from any CharacterSet.

Usage: CharacterSet.alphanumerics.randomString(length: 100)

extension CharacterSet {
    /// extracting characters
    /// https://stackoverflow.com/a/52133647/1033581
    public func characters() -> [Character] {
        return codePoints().compactMap { UnicodeScalar($0) }.map { Character($0) }
    }
    public func codePoints() -> [Int] {
        var result: [Int] = []
        var plane = 0
        for (i, w) in bitmapRepresentation.enumerated() {
            let k = i % 8193
            if k == 8192 {
                plane = Int(w) << 13
                continue
            }
            let base = (plane + k) << 3
            for j in 0 ..< 8 where w & 1 << j != 0 {
                result.append(base + j)
            }
        }
        return result
    }

    /// building random string of desired length
    /// https://stackoverflow.com/a/42895178/1033581
    public func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
        let charArray = characters()
        let charArrayCount = UInt32(charArray.count)
        var randomString = ""
        for _ in 0 ..< length {
            randomString += String(charArray[Int(arc4random_uniform(charArrayCount))])
        }
        return randomString
    }
}

The characters() function is my fastest known implementation.

Answer 3

UPDATED 2019.

In the unusual case that

performance matters.

Here is an extremely clear function that caches:

func randomNameString(length: Int = 7)->String{
    
    enum s {
        static let c = Array("abcdefghjklmnpqrstuvwxyz12345789")
        static let k = UInt32(c.count)
    }
    
    var result = [Character](repeating: "-", count: length)
    
    for i in 0..<length {
        let r = Int(arc4random_uniform(s.k))
        result[i] = s.c[r]
    }
    
    return String(result)
}

This is for when you have a fixed, known character set.

Handy tip:

Note that "abcdefghjklmnpqrstuvwxyz12345789" avoids 'bad' characters

There is no 0, o, O, i, etc ... the characters humans often confuse.

This is often done for booking codes and similar codes which human customers will use.

Answer 4

Swift 5.0

// Generating Random String
func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
    let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    return String((0..<length).map{ _ in letters.randomElement()! })
}
// Calling to string
label.text = randomString(length: 3)