Protocol Conformance and Implicitly Unwrapped Optionals

Hi,

Just looking into a frustrating case with protocols and wondering if this would be a good pitch for a language change.

When using optionals in a protocol, conformers who’s optional type is implicitly unwrapped causes an error in the compiler.

Eg:

protocol TextEntryView {
    var text: String?
}

// This works.
class UITextField: TextEntryView {} 


// This doesn't work because it's declaration has `text: String!`
class UITextView: TextEntryView {} 

Given the content of SE-0054 which abolishes the implicitly unwrapped type and making it optional with an implicit unwrapping behavior, should we allow protocol conformance where the conformers optional type is implicitly unwrapped?

I can see good reason for avoiding this where the protocol declares implicit unwrapping and the conformer has a standard optional due to safety reasons, but vice versa has no such issues.

Thoughts?

3 Likes

Just out of curiosity, are you using a 4.2 toolchain? (Same error when develop toolchain?) If so, this seems more like bug report to me.

1 Like

I tried this on the latest 4.2 and master snapshots, yes.

Moved this thread to Using Swift.

Can anyone flag whether this is a bug, and if so, is it tracked or should I raise a bug for it?