Why does Swift return an unexpected pointer when converting an optional String into an UnsafePointer?

Question

I noticed some unusual behaviour when working with a C library which took strings in as const char * (which is converted to Swift as UnsafePointer

Answer 1

Just to be clear, there is a workaround until Apple fixes this. Unwrap your optional Strings before passing them and everything will work fine.

var anOptional: String?
var anotherOptional: String?

func mySwiftFunc() {

    let unwrappedA = anOptional!
    let unwrappedB = anotherOptional!

    myCStringFunc(unwrappedA, unwrappedB)

}