How to declare variable that has a struct array outside function

Question

I need to use the currentQuestion variable outside of the randomQuestionGenerator function. Whats the proper syntax for declaring it beforehand?

struct Questions {
    var Question: String
    var answer: Int
    var answers: [String]
}

class GameScreen: UIViewController {

var correctAnswer = 0
var fullQuestions: [Questions] = []

func RandomQuestionGenerator(){
    let randomQuestion = 
Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(fullQuestions.count)))
    var currentQuestion = fullQuestions[randomQuestion]
    correctAnswer = currentQuestion.answer

Why don't you make your currentQuestion similar to correctAnswer? — OOPer
– OOPer, Commented Aug 15, 2017 at 2:14

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-15 02:12:33Z

1

You can declare currentQuestion as an optional outside the function:

var currentQuestion : Questions? = nil
func RandomQuestionGenerator() {
    let randomQuestion = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(fullQuestions.count)))
    currentQuestion = fullQuestions[randomQuestion]
    correctAnswer = currentQuestion.answer
}

Although you could do that, a better approach is to make your function return the random question, like this:

func RandomQuestionGenerator() -> Questions {
    let randomQuestion = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(fullQuestions.count)))
    return fullQuestions[randomQuestion]
}

Now you can use the function to retrieve the next random question, and get its fields as needed:

let nextQuestion = RandomQuestionGenerator()
print(nextQuestion.Question)
print(nextQuestion.answers)

edited Aug 15, 2017 at 2:12

answered Aug 15, 2017 at 1:58

Sergey Kalinichenko

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3 Comments

Richard Parker Over a year ago

The function has a lot more to it aside from just setting up a random question variable, I cut it out to keep it simple.

Richard Parker Over a year ago

Also when I try to declare it as type of questions, my view controller says it has no initializers and doesn't run, why is this?

Sergey Kalinichenko Over a year ago

@RichardParker It needs to be optional, too, so that an unassigned state would be allowed.

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