Swift string as UIColor object

Question

I am trying to convert the string 'red' to UIColor.red, this is what I got so far:

let rowColor = row.ResponsibilityColor!

print(rowColor) //this is "red"

styleToApply.backgroundColor = UIColor.yellow

Now if I know if I do this, I will no doubt have an error as UIColor does not have a property called rowColor:

styleToApply.backgroundColor = UIColor.rowColor

Is it possible to accomplish what I am trying to do? I dont have to use if conditions, because the color values are coming from a web service.

Answer 1

Do you want something like that ?

extension String {
    func color() -> UIColor? {
        switch(self){
        case "red":
            return UIColor.red
        default:
            return nil
        }
    }
}

Use it like that :

let rowColor = "red"
let color = rowColor.color()
print(color ?? "color not found in String extensions.")

it prints the red UIColor : r 1,0 g 0,0 b 0,0 a 1,0

The inconvenient is that you must have all your API color identifiers declared in the String extension to convert it to the right UIColor, this solution can be improved.