Random uicolor from string array

Question

I wish to pick change the background Color of my swift application by calling a random Color from a predetermined string array such as (red, green, pink).

so i have that array and i want the background color to be randomly selected as one of thoses colors.

using self.bg.background color resulted in xcode saying that a string could not be converted into a uicolor

Answer 1

Here's an example of one way to do this:

import UIKit

extension Array {
  func randomElement() -> Element {
    return self[Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(self.count)))]
  }
}

extension UIColor {
  enum ColorEnum: String {
    case red   // = "red"
    case green // = "green"
    case blue  // = "blue"
    case pink  // = "pink"

    func toColor() -> UIColor {
      switch self {
      case .red:
        return .redColor()
      case .green:
        return .greenColor()
      case .blue:
        return .blueColor()
      case .pink:
        return UIColor(hue: 1.0, saturation: 0.25, brightness: 1.0, alpha: 1.0)
      }
    }
  }

  static func fromString(name: String) -> UIColor? {
    return ColorEnum(rawValue: name)?.toColor()
  }
}

let colors = ["red", "green", "pink"] // stored as String
UIColor.fromString(colors.randomElement())

let enumColors: [UIColor.ColorEnum] = [.red, .green, .pink] // stored as enum
enumColors.randomElement().toColor()