searchcontroller.swift

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    // error: 'UISearchController' is only available on iOS 8.0 or newer
    var searchController: UISearchController?

    // error: Stored properties cannot be marked potentially unavailable with 'introduced='
    @available(iOS 8.0, *)
    var conditionallyAvailableSearchController: UISearchController?

    // Workaround that works
    private var _searchController: UIViewController?
    @available(iOS 8.0, *)
    private var workingSearchController: UISearchController? {
        get {
            return _searchController as? UISearchController
        }
        set {
            _searchController = newValue
        }
    }

}

Can't mark the class as @available(iOS 8.0, *) since the class i'm encountering this in needs to work on iOS 7 too.