Check if string contains special characters in Swift

Question

I have to detect whether a string contains any special characters. How can I check it? Does Swift support regular expressions?

var characterSet:NSCharacterSet         


        

Answer 1

@Martin R answer is great, I just wanted to update it (the second part) to Swift 2.1 version

let regex = try! NSRegularExpression(pattern: ".*[^A-Za-z0-9].*", options: NSRegularExpressionOptions())
if regex.firstMatchInString(searchTerm!, options: NSMatchingOptions(), range:NSMakeRange(0, searchTerm!.characters.count)) != nil {
    print("could not handle special characters")
}

I used try! as we can be sure it create a regex, it doesn't base on any dynamic kind of a data