Difference between Printable and DebugPrintable in Swift

Question

Looking for a Swift equivalent of Cocoa\'s description, I found the following protocols in Swift: Printable and DebugPrintable.

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Answer 1

In Xcode 6 Beta (Version 6.2 (6C101)) I find that both println and debugPrintln use description if-and-only-if the class descends from NSObject. I don't see that either uses debugDescription at all but when run in a Playground debugPrintln outputs only to the Console and doesn't appear in the playground itself.

import Foundation

class Tdesc: NSObject, Printable, DebugPrintable {
    override var description: String {return "A description"}
    override var debugDescription: String {return "A debugDescription"}
}

class Xdesc: Printable, DebugPrintable {
    var description: String {return "A description"}
    var debugDescription: String {return "A debugDescription"}
}

let t = Tdesc()
let x = Xdesc()

t.description

let z: String = "x\(t)"

println(t)      // Displays "A description" in the Playground and Console

debugPrintln(t) // Displays nothing in the Playground but "A description" in the Console

x.description

let y: String = "x\(x)"

println(x)      // Displays "__lldb_expr_405.Xdesc" in the Playground and Console

debugPrintln(x)