Gets in Swift

gets.swift

//
//  gets.swift
//  smilef
//
//  Created by Talus Baddley on 2014-6-5.
//  Copyright (c) 2014 Eightt. All rights reserved.
//

// This is to demonstrate a simple, safe gets() implementation
// in Swift, that automatically buffers input on demand and
// always splits on newline.

import Foundation

// Just everything the system has buffered & waiting:
func slurpFromStdin() -> NSString {
    var keyboard = NSFileHandle.fileHandleWithStandardInput()
    var inputData = keyboard.availableData
    return NSString(data: inputData, encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding)
}



// That is, it returns a block which takes no arguments
// and which itself returns an NSString.
func makeLineReader() -> ()->NSString {
    var textBuffer: NSString = NSString()
    
    return {
        while textBuffer.rangeOfString("\n").location == NSNotFound {
            textBuffer = textBuffer.stringByAppendingString(slurpFromStdin())
        }
        
        let ross = textBuffer.rangeOfString("\n")
        let firstFullLine = textBuffer.substringToIndex(ross.location)
        textBuffer = textBuffer.substringFromIndex(ross.location + ross.length)
        
        return firstFullLine
        
    }
    
}
let staticLineReader = makeLineReader()




// Simply invoke the static line reader block:
func gets() -> String {
    return staticLineReader()
}

Small print: I make no claim that this follows best practices or handles all edge cases.