Swift String.removeRange cannot compile - string

Question

I don't understand what to do with the issue reported by the compiler. I tried to create a Range, but it says Index is not known:
//let range = matches.first!.range.location
let range = Range(
start:matches.first!.range.location,
end: matches.first!.range.location+matches.first!.range.length
)
id = text[range]
var t = text
t.removeRange(range)
return t
Compiler says: Cannot invoke 'removeRange' with an argument list of type '(Range)' on t.removeRange(range).
I'm pretty sure it's evident, but I lost a great deal of time on such a small issue… any help highly appreciated!

Answer 1

As your error says that:
Cannot invoke 'removeRange' with an argument list of type '(Range)'
Means there is a problem with your range instance type and removeRange function will only accept an argument with type Range<String.Index> and its syntax is :
/// Remove the indicated `subRange` of characters
///
/// Invalidates all indices with respect to `self`.
///
/// Complexity: O(\ `count(self)`\ ).
mutating func removeRange(subRange: Range<String.Index>)
And here is working example with removeRange:
var welcome = "hello there"
let range = advance(welcome.endIndex, -6)..<welcome.endIndex
welcome.removeRange(range)
println(welcome) //hello
Hope this will help.

Answer 2

Swift 2.2 example of removing first 4 characters:
let range = text.startIndex..<text.startIndex.advancedBy(4)
text.removeRange(range)
That first line feels verbose. I hope newer Swift versions improve upon it.

Answer 3

Here is the working equivalent snippet:
static func unitTest() {
let text = "a👿bbbbb🇩🇪c"
let tag = Tag(id: "🇩🇪")
tag.regex = "👿b+"
print ("Unit test tag.foundIn(\(text)) ? = \(tag.foundIn(text))")
}
func foundIn(text: String) -> (id:String, remainingText:String)? {
// if a regex is provided, use it to capture, and keep the capture as a tag ID
if let regex = regex {
let r = Regex(regex) // text =~ regex
let matches = r.matches(text)
if matches.count >= 1 {
let first = matches.first!.range
let start = advance(text.startIndex, first.location)
let end = advance(start, first.length-1)
let range = Range(start: start, end: end)
id = text[range]
var t = text
t.removeRange(range)
return (id, t)
}
return nil
}
else if let range = text.rangeOfString(id) {
var t = text
t.removeRange(range)
return (id, t)
}
else {
return nil
}
}
The unit test returns :
Unit test tag.foundIn(a👿bbbbb🇩🇪c) ? = Optional(("👿bbbbb", "a🇩🇪c"))