Utilities to work with ASCII characters and characters as integers.

UnicodeScalarUtils.swift

// A small set of utilities for working with Unicode and ASCII scalars. Here is what it does:
// 
// 1. Make `UnicodeScalar` strideable. This enables ranges of Unicode Scalars such as "a"..."z".
// 2. Add strideable Unicode.ASCII.Scalar (type alias `ASCII`) to enable type-safe manipulation of ASCII bytes. 
// 3. Define limited `+`/`-` operators for stridable types to make something like `"x" + ("A"-"a")` possible.


// 1. Make `UnicodeScalar` strideable. This enables ranges of Unicode Scalars such as "a"..."z".

// Constants used in `Strideable` conformance extension of `Unicode.Scalar`
private let invalidCount = 0xE000 - 0xD7FF
private let validCount = 0x10FFFF - invalidCount

extension Unicode.Scalar: Strideable {
    
    public func advanced(by n: Int) -> Unicode.Scalar {
        
        let intValue = Int(value)
        
        precondition(n >= -intValue && n <= validCount-intValue, "Out of bounds")
        
        let newValue = value.advanced(by: n)
        
        switch (value, newValue) {
            
        case (0...0xD7FF, 0...0xD7FF),
             (0xE000...0x10FFFF, 0xE000...0x10FFFF):
            return Unicode.Scalar(newValue)!
            
        case (0...0xD7FF, _):
            return Unicode.Scalar(newValue.advanced(by: invalidCount))!
            
        case (0xE000...0x10FFFF, _):
            return Unicode.Scalar(newValue.advanced(by: -invalidCount))!

        default:
            fatalError("Unreachable! (scalar: \(value), stride: \(n))")
        }
    }
    
    public func distance(to other: Unicode.Scalar) -> Int {
        
        let value = UTF32.CodeUnit.init(self)
        let otherValue = UTF32.CodeUnit.init(other)
        
        switch (value, otherValue) {
            
        case (0...0xD7FF, 0...0xD7FF),
             (0xE000...0x10FFFF, 0xE000...0x10FFFF):
            return value.distance(to: otherValue)
            
        case (0...0xD7FF, 0xE000...0x10FFFF):
            return value.distance(to: otherValue) - invalidCount
            
        case (0xE000...0x10FFFF, 0...0xD7FF):
            return value.distance(to: otherValue) + invalidCount
            
       default:
            fatalError("Unreachable")
        }
    }
}

// 2. Add Unicode.ASCII.Scalar (type alias `ASCII`) to enable type-safe manipulation of ASCII bytes. 

extension Unicode.ASCII {
    
    public struct Scalar: ExpressibleByUnicodeScalarLiteral, Strideable {
        
        public let int8: Int8
        public var uint8: UInt8 { return UInt8(bitPattern: int8) }
        public var unicode: UnicodeScalar { return UnicodeScalar(uint8) }
        public var character: Character { return Character(unicode) }

        public init(_ value: Int8) {
            if value >= 0 {
                int8 = value
            } else {
                fatalError("Not an ASCII code")
            }
        }

        public init(_ value: UInt8) { self.init(Int8(bitPattern: value)) }

        public init(_ scalar: UnicodeScalar) {
            guard scalar.isASCII else { fatalError("Not an ASCII literal") }
            int8 = Int8(scalar.value)
        }
        
        public init(unicodeScalarLiteral value: UnicodeScalar) { self.init(value) }
        
        public func advanced(by n: Int8) -> Scalar { return Scalar(int8+n) }
        
        public func distance(to other: Scalar) -> Int8 { return other.int8 - int8 }
    }
}

public typealias ASCII = Unicode.ASCII.Scalar



// 3. Define limited `+`/`-` operators for stridable types to make something like `"x" + ("A"-"a")` possible.

public extension Strideable {
    
    static func + (lhs: Self, rhs: Self.Stride) -> Self {
        return lhs.advanced(by: rhs)
    }
    
    static func - (lhs: Self, rhs: Self) -> Self.Stride {
        return rhs.distance(to: lhs)
    }
}