What’s the _ underscore representative of in Swift References?

by

Both answers were correct but I want to clarify a little bit more.

_ is used to modify external parameter name behavior for methods.

In Local and External Parameter Names for Methods section of the documentation, it says:

Swift gives the first parameter name in a method a local parameter name by default, and gives the second and subsequent parameter names both local and external parameter names by default.

On the other hand, functions by default don’t have external parameter names.

For example, we have this foo() method defined in class Bar:

class Bar{
    func foo(s1: String, s2: String) -> String {
        return s1 + s2;
    }
}

When you call foo(), it is called like bar.foo("Hello", s2: "World").

But, you can override this behavior by using _ in front of s2 where it’s declared.

func foo(s1: String, _ s2: String) -> String{
    return s1 + s2;
}

Then, when you call foo, it could be simply called like bar.foo("Hello", "World") without the name of the second parameter.

Back to your case, runAction is a method because it’s associated with type SKNode, obviously. Thus, putting a _ before parameter action allows you to call runAction without an external name.

Update for Swift 2.0

Function and method now work the same way in terms of local and external argument name declaration.

Functions are now called by using external parameter name by default, starting at 2nd parameter. This rule only applies to pure Swift code.

So, by providing an _ in front of a function, the caller won’t have to specify external parameter name, just like what you would do for a method.

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