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Swift 3 Object-Oriented Programming

You're reading from   Swift 3 Object-Oriented Programming Implement object-oriented programming paradigms with Swift 3.0 and mix them with modern functional programming techniques to build powerful real-world applications

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Product type Paperback
Published in Feb 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787120396
Length 370 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
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Author (1):
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Gaston C. Hillar Gaston C. Hillar
Author Profile Icon Gaston C. Hillar
Gaston C. Hillar
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Toc

Table of Contents (10) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Objects from the Real World to the Playground FREE CHAPTER 2. Structures, Classes, and Instances 3. Encapsulation of Data with Properties 4. Inheritance, Abstraction, and Specialization 5. Contract Programming with Protocols 6. Maximization of Code Reuse with Generic Code 7. Object-Oriented and Functional Programming 8. Extending and Building Object-Oriented Code 9. Exercise Answers

Declaring associated types in protocols


Now, we want to declare a PartyProtocol protocol and make the generic Party<AnimalElement> class conform to this new protocol. The main challenge is to specify the type for both the method arguments and returned values. In the generic class, we will use the generic type parameter, but protocols don't allow us to use them.

Associated types allow us to solve the problem. We can declare one or more associated types as part of the protocol definition. In this case, we just need one associated type to provide us with a placeholder name---also known as alias---to a type that we will use as part of the protocol and that will be specified during the protocol implementation, that is, when we declare a class that conforms to the protocol. It is just necessary to use the associatedtype keyword followed by the desired name for the associated type, and then, we can use the name in our requirements' declarations.

The following lines show the declaration of the...

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