The absolute Basics
A tuple can combine different types into one. Where an array is a sequence
of a certain type (let x: [Int] = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
) a tuple can have
a different type for each element: let x: (Int, Double, String) = (5, 2.0, "Hey")
.
Tuples are a very simple manner of grouping related data items together without having to create a struct.
They are value types and even though they look like sequences they aren't. One main difference is that you can't easily loop over the contents of a tuple.
We'll start with a quick primer on how to create and use tuples.
Creating and Accessing Tuples
// Constructing a simple tuple
let tuple1 = (2, 3)
let tuple2 = (2, 3, 4)
// Constructing a named tuple
let tupl3 = (x: 5, y: 3)
// Different types
let tuple4 = (name: \"Carl\", age: 78, pets: [\"Bonny\", \"Houdon\", \"Miki\"])
Once you've created some tuples, you can access their elements:
// Accessing tuple elements
let tuple5 = (13, 21)
tuple5.0 // 13
tuple5.1 // 21
// Access by name
let tuple6 = (x: 21, y: 33)
tuple6.x // 21
tuple6.y // 33
Nice, so now you can create tuples and access their elements. But what would you
use them for? The use case we will discuss is for pattern matching
.