Swift 5.0: 'withUnsafeBytes' is deprecated: use `withUnsafeBytes<R>(…)

Question

I previously used this code in Swift 4.2 to generate an id:

public static func generateId() throws -> UInt32 {
    let data: Data = try random(bytes: 4)
    let value: UInt32 = data.withUnsafeBytes { $0.pointee } // deprecated warning!
    return value // + some other stuff 
}

withUnsafeBytes is deprecated on Swift 5.0. How can I solve this?

Answer 1

In Swift 5 the withUnsafeBytes() method of Data calls the closure with an (untyped) UnsafeRawBufferPointer, and you can load() the value from the raw memory:

let value = data.withUnsafeBytes { $0.load(as: UInt32.self) }

(compare How to use Data.withUnsafeBytes in a well-defined manner? in the Swift forum). Note that this requires that the memory is aligned on a 4-byte boundary. For alternatives see round trip Swift number types to/from Data.

Note also that as of Swift 4.2 you can create a random 32-bit integer simply using the new Random API:

let randomId = UInt32.random(in: .min ... .max)

Answer 2

On Xcode 10.2, Swift 5, using $0.load(as:) didn't work for me, both when reading from the pointer or writing to it.

Instead, using $0.baseAddress?.assumingMemoryBound(to:) seems to work well.

Example reading from the pointer buffer (code is unrelated to the question):

var reachability: SCNetworkReachability?
data.withUnsafeBytes { ptr in
    guard let bytes = ptr.baseAddress?.assumingMemoryBound(to: Int8.self) else {
        return
    }
    reachability = SCNetworkReachabilityCreateWithName(nil, bytes)
}

Example writing to the buffer pointer (code is unrelated to the question):

try outputData.withUnsafeMutableBytes { (outputBytes: UnsafeMutableRawBufferPointer) in
    let status = CCKeyDerivationPBKDF(CCPBKDFAlgorithm(kCCPBKDF2),
                                      passphrase,
                                      passphrase.utf8.count,
                                      salt,
                                      salt.utf8.count,
                                      CCPseudoRandomAlgorithm(kCCPRFHmacAlgSHA1),
                                      rounds,
                                      outputBytes.baseAddress?.assumingMemoryBound(to: UInt8.self),
                                              kCCKeySizeAES256)
    guard status == kCCSuccess else {
        throw Error.keyDerivationError
    }
}

The code from the question would look like:

let value = data.withUnsafeBytes { 
    $0.baseAddress?.assumingMemoryBound(to: UInt32.self)
}

In cases where the 'withUnsafeBytes' is deprecated: use withUnsafeBytes<R>(…) warning persists, it seems like the compiler can get confused when the closure has only one line. Making the closure have two or more lines might remove the ambiguity.