How to convert NSURL to String in Swift

Question

How do you convert an NSURL to a String in Swift?

The following:

var directoryURL: NSURL
var urlString: String = nsurlObject as String

Throws the error:

Cannot convert value of type 'NSURL' to type 'String' in coercion

Answer 1

It turns out there are properties of NSURL you can access (see Swift Reference):

var directoryURL: NSURL
var urlString: String = directoryURL.absoluteString
// OR
var urlString: String = directoryURL.relativeString
// OR
var urlString: String = directoryURL.relativePath
// OR
var urlString: String = directoryURL.path
// etc.

Answer 2

In Swift 3 & 4,

To convert URL to String, you can use:

String(contentsOf: URL)

and to convert String to URL:

URL(string: String)