How to get text / String from nth line of UILabel?

Question

Is there an easy way to get (or simply display) the text from a given line in a UILabel?

My UILabel is correctly displaying my text and laying it out beautifully bu

Answer 1

Swift 3 – Xcode 8.1

I've put together code from the previous answers to create a Swift 3, Xcode 8.1-compatible extension to UILabel returning the first line of the label.

import CoreText

extension UILabel {

   /// Returns the String displayed in the first line of the UILabel or "" if text or font is missing
   var firstLineString: String {

    guard let text = self.text else { return "" }
    guard let font = self.font else { return "" }
    let rect = self.frame

    let attStr = NSMutableAttributedString(string: text)
    attStr.addAttribute(String(kCTFontAttributeName), value: CTFontCreateWithName(font.fontName as CFString, font.pointSize, nil), range: NSMakeRange(0, attStr.length))

    let frameSetter = CTFramesetterCreateWithAttributedString(attStr as CFAttributedString)
    let path = CGMutablePath()
    path.addRect(CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: rect.size.width + 7, height: 100))
    let frame = CTFramesetterCreateFrame(frameSetter, CFRangeMake(0, 0), path, nil)

    guard let line = (CTFrameGetLines(frame) as! [CTLine]).first else { return "" }
    let lineString = text[text.startIndex...text.index(text.startIndex, offsetBy: CTLineGetStringRange(line).length-2)]

    return lineString
  }
}

To use it, simple call firstLineString on your UILabel instance like this:

let firstLine = myLabel.firstLineString