gistfile1.swift

    struct Time {
        
        /* Is there any good way to do this without the intermediate vars? Swift 1.2 (Xcode 6.3b4) does not seem to let me write into the structs constants directly before initializing them. */
        init(date: NSDate) {
            var hour: Int = 0, minute: Int = 0, second: Int = 0, nanosecond: Int = 0
            NSCalendar.currentCalendar().getHour(&hour, minute: &minute, second: &second, nanosecond: &nanosecond, fromDate: date)
            self.hour = hour; self. minute = minute; self.second = second; self.nanosecond = nanosecond
        }
        
        let hour: Int
        let minute: Int
        let second: Int
        let nanoSecond: Int
    }

Swift can’t know if getHour will try to read uninit’ed vars, will initialise them, or keeps refs and write them later. So it's good this got fixed in 1.2 so it doesn't allow that anymore.

I only see the option of using visibility modifiers.

import UIKit

struct Time {

  init(date: NSDate) {
    NSCalendar.currentCalendar().getHour(&self.hour, minute: &self.minute, second: &self.second, nanosecond: &self.nanoSecond, fromDate: date)
  }

  private(set) public var hour: Int = 0
  private(set) public var minute: Int = 0
  private(set) public var second: Int = 0
  private(set) public var nanoSecond: Int = 0
}

let t = Time(date: NSDate())