I called this to get an array of attribute names of an AXUIElement element.

    var attrNames: CFArray? = nil;
    AXUIElementCopyAttributeNames(element, &attrNames);

My understanding is that attrNames is a CFArray of CFString.

I then call:

var foo = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(attrNames!, idx)

In Objective-C, this corresponding call returns an NSArray* of CFString*. How do I access the individual strings of this array in Swift?

I tried this: let attrName : NSString = (NSString) CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(attrNames!, index);

but it won't compile: Cannot convert value of type '(NSString).Type' to specified type 'NSString'

I also tried CFString instead of NSString, but got a similar message.

I called this to get an array of attribute names of an AXUIElement element.

    var attrNames: CFArray? = nil;
    AXUIElementCopyAttributeNames(element, &attrNames);

My understanding is that attrNames is a CFArray of CFString.

I then call:

var foo = CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(attrNames!, idx)

In Objective-C, this corresponding call returns an NSArray* of CFString*. How do I access the individual strings of this array in Swift?

I tried this: let attrName : NSString = (NSString) CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(attrNames!, index);

but it won't compile: Cannot convert value of type '(NSString).Type' to specified type 'NSString'

I also tried CFString instead of NSString, but got a similar message.

• swift
• cfstring

• attrNames is a CFArray of CFString, you need to safely extract values in Swift. – K.pen Commented 2 days ago
• (NSString) value is how you do a cast in C and Objective C, but not Swift. In Swift, it's spelt as, as? or as!, depending on the kind of conversion, and what you want to happen if that value doesn't have the type you expected. – Alexander Commented 2 days ago

1 Answer 1

Don't use CFArray at all; it isn't Swift. Cast the CFArray safely to a Swift array of String, and then talk Swift, using subscripting to index the array as usual. Thus for example:

var attrNames: CFArray?
AXUIElementCopyAttributeNames(element, &attrNames)
guard let attrNames = attrNames as? [String] else { return }
var foo = attrNames[idx]