Swift 5.7’s new optional unwrapping syntax | Swift by Sundell

Swift 5.7 introduces a new, more concise way to unwrap optional values using if let and guard let statements. Before, we always had to explicitly name each unwrapped value, for example like this:

class AnimationController {
    var animation: Animation?

    func update() {
        if let animation = animation {
            
            ...
        }
    }
}

But now, we can simply drop the assignment after our if let statement, and the Swift compiler will automatically unwrap our optional into a concrete value with the exact same name:

class AnimationController {
    var animation: Animation?

    func update() {
        if let animation {
            
            ...
        }
    }
}

Neat! The above new syntax also works with guard statements:

class AnimationController {
    var animation: Animation?

    func update() {
        guard let animation else {
            return
        }

        
        ...
    }
}

It can also be used to unwrap multiple optionals all at once:

struct Message {
    var title: String?
    var body: String?
    var recipient: String?

    var isSendable: Bool {
        guard let title, let body, let recipient else {
            return false
        }

        return ![title, body, recipient].contains(where: \.isEmpty)
    }
}

A small, but very welcome feature. Of course, we still have the option to explicitly name each unwrapped optional if we wish to do so — either for code style reasons, or if we want to give a certain optional a different name when unwrapped.