Generate random alphanumeric string in Swift

Question

How can I generate a random alphanumeric string in Swift?

Answer 1

Swift 4.2 Update

Swift 4.2 introduced major improvements in dealing with random values and elements. You can read more about those improvements here. Here is the method reduced to a few lines:

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
  let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
  return String((0..<length).map{ _ in letters.randomElement()! })
}

Swift 3.0 Update

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let len = UInt32(letters.length)

    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let rand = arc4random_uniform(len)
        var nextChar = letters.character(at: Int(rand))
        randomString += NSString(characters: &nextChar, length: 1) as String
    }

    return randomString
}

Original answer:

func randomStringWithLength (len : Int) -> NSString {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

    var randomString : NSMutableString = NSMutableString(capacity: len)

    for (var i=0; i < len; i++){
        var length = UInt32 (letters.length)
        var rand = arc4random_uniform(length)
        randomString.appendFormat("%C", letters.characterAtIndex(Int(rand)))
    }

    return randomString
}