Swift - What is 'self'?

Self is a concept that confused me a bit as a beginner as I saw it all over my code base but never really understood WHY I had to use it and what it meant. In this video I hope to clear that up for you.

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[seanallen]

If you enjoy my teaching/presentation style I've started creating courses at seanallen.teachable.com. You can watch the first few videos of all my courses for free to get a feel for them.

[jcubedapps]

This is a deep title and made me reflect on things. What is "self"? Thanks for breaking down what self is in Swift.

[rickmarz]

Thank you for making so simple to understand. I was searching all over the web and I couldn’t understand until I saw your video.

[mac]

Keep it up Sean! I love your content. I started learning Swift about 2 months ago. Your videos help get me through the workday and I follow along when I get home. Thanks!!!

[stillwrinkled]

oh man Sean! usage of "self" confused me for days despite knowing disambiguation between parameter and property...yadda yadda..but thanks for making this tutorial...i know lot of new developers will love you for this because finding a clear explanation is still very difficult.

[gmostafaali]

Your teaching way is the best for learning, I have ever experienced.

[shadieossei]

I see what you did there in the beginning haha! so funny lol!

[leahleavitt]

THANK YOU!! I've been so hung up on this and going a bit nuts.

[swiftcoding]

Objective-C was fun because we had self and the id. The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.

[Faisalx]

this and self in php
$this indicate object context for non static data and self will be used for referring a static member of a class.

[ricolamoretti]

Hi! Please do a video on how to pass functions/types as parameters/outputs in functions

[BekaDemuradze]

I remember using self without understanding it :) good old noobie days

[zhaoyangli]

One more meaning of "self" is like "type", for example JsonDecoder().decode(DataModel.self, from: data)

[MrDonhekel]

therres also Self now (capital S) which referring to static owner name.

[chetanjeevsinghbains]

is it similar to "this" keyword in java?

[phongho.design]

Summary
- An introduction to the concept of "self" in Swift programming.
- "Self" refers to the current instance of a class or object.
- It is used to access and modify properties and methods within the class.
- "Self" is used in initializers to refer to the instance being initialized.
- It is also used to set delegates and data sources in table views.

Highlights
- 💡"Self" is a shorthand way of referring to the current instance of a class or object.
- 💡It is used to access and modify properties and methods within the class.
- 💡In initializers, "self" is used to set properties of the current instance.
- 💡"Self" is used to associate table view delegates and data sources with the current class.
- 💡Understanding the concept of "self" is important in Swift programming.

[Kuraudo_VII]

Now I know "what" is self, but I think more importantly I want to know "why" do we need to use self. For the background color, you said that using self.backgroundColor will distinguish between the variable that we want to change with the passed in value. That's fine, but most other times, that explanation doesn't fit. For example setTitle(title) does not have similar looking variables so why do we still need to use self? Fundamentally what is the difference between self.setTitle() and just plain setTitle()? Under what situation do we need to use self?

[TheAhmadReza]

With full respect, for the first time, I didn't satisfy with your explanation. Especially the connection to delegates. why should we pass an instance of a complete class to a simple delegate?

[TheBorpol]

So Sean, shall we say that self is similar to "this" in Java?

[pratikgupta]

self.fromSean = "I'll Get Heart"