Ambiguous use of subscript in Firebase call

Question

I'm trying to do a firebase read, I'm trying to read an integer from firebase, but for some reason this isn't working:

func firebaseCall () {

        ref.observeEventType(.Value, withBlock: { snapshot in
            print(snapshot.value)
            let people = snapshot.value["people"] as! Int
            print("People is \(people)")
                       //            let time = snapshot.value["time"] as! Int
            let date = NSDate()
            let calendar = NSCalendar.currentCalendar()
            let components = calendar.components(.Hour, fromDate: date)
            let hour = components.hour

            print("time is \(hour)")



            }, withCancelBlock: { error in
                print(error.description)
        })
    }

I get the error Ambiguous use of subscript on the snapshot.value["people"]. I used the exact code in another project and it works so I'm incredibly confused. The difference is that this code is used in a SKScene where as the other time it was in a view controller. Can anyone help fix this? Or suggest another way i can read the int value from firebase? Thanks

Answer 1

The compiler doesn't know what is being returned by

let people = snapshot.value["people"] as! Int

You may want to consider

if let someInt = snapshot.value.objectForKey("people")
or
if let someInt = snapshot.value as? Int

Not knowing what is in the snapshot leaves a little ambiguity.

If the object may be nil you may want to add some way to handle that

    if let thing = snapshot.value {
        print("thing was not nil")
    } else {
        print("thing was nil")
    }