Split a String into an array in Swift?

Just call componentsSeparatedByString method on your fullName

import Foundation

var fullName: String = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")

var firstName: String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName: String = fullNameArr[1]

Update for Swift 3+

import Foundation

let fullName    = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.components(separatedBy: " ")

let name    = fullNameArr[0]
let surname = fullNameArr[1]

The Swift way is to use the global split function, like so:

var fullName = "First Last"
var fullNameArr = split(fullName) {$0 == " "}
var firstName: String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName: String? = fullNameArr.count > 1 ? fullNameArr[1] : nil

with Swift 2

In Swift 2 the use of split becomes a bit more complicated due to the introduction of the internal CharacterView type. This means that String no longer adopts the SequenceType or CollectionType protocols and you must instead use the .characters property to access a CharacterView type representation of a String instance. (Note: CharacterView does adopt SequenceType and CollectionType protocols).

let fullName = "First Last"
let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{$0 == " "}.map(String.init)
// or simply:
// let fullNameArr = fullName.characters.split{" "}.map(String.init)

fullNameArr[0] // First
fullNameArr[1] // Last 

The easiest method to do this is by using componentsSeparatedBy:

For Swift 2:

import Foundation
let fullName : String = "First Last";
let fullNameArr : [String] = fullName.componentsSeparatedByString(" ")

// And then to access the individual words:

var firstName : String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName : String = fullNameArr[1]

For Swift 3:

import Foundation

let fullName : String = "First Last"
let fullNameArr : [String] = fullName.components(separatedBy: " ")

// And then to access the individual words:

var firstName : String = fullNameArr[0]
var lastName : String = fullNameArr[1]

Swift Dev. 4.0 (May 24, 2017)

A new function split in Swift 4 (Beta).

import Foundation
let sayHello = "Hello Swift 4 2017";
let result = sayHello.split(separator: " ")
print(result)

Output:

["Hello", "Swift", "4", "2017"]

Accessing values:

print(result[0]) // Hello
print(result[1]) // Swift
print(result[2]) // 4
print(result[3]) // 2017

Xcode 8.1 / Swift 3.0.1

Here is the way multiple delimiters with array.

import Foundation
let mathString: String = "12-37*2/5"
let numbers = mathString.components(separatedBy: ["-", "*", "/"])
print(numbers)

Output:

["12", "37", "2", "5"]

Swift 4 or later

If you just need to properly format a person name, you can use PersonNameComponentsFormatter.

The PersonNameComponentsFormatter class provides localized representations of the components of a person’s name, as represented by a PersonNameComponents object. Use this class to create localized names when displaying person name information to the user.


// iOS (9.0 and later), macOS (10.11 and later), tvOS (9.0 and later), watchOS (2.0 and later)
let nameFormatter = PersonNameComponentsFormatter()

let name =  "Mr. Steven Paul Jobs Jr."
// personNameComponents requires iOS (10.0 and later)
if let nameComps  = nameFormatter.personNameComponents(from: name) {
    nameComps.namePrefix   // Mr.
    nameComps.givenName    // Steven
    nameComps.middleName   // Paul
    nameComps.familyName   // Jobs
    nameComps.nameSuffix   // Jr.

    // It can also be configured to format your names
    // Default (same as medium), short, long or abbreviated

    nameFormatter.style = .default
    nameFormatter.string(from: nameComps)   // "Steven Jobs"

    nameFormatter.style = .short
    nameFormatter.string(from: nameComps)   // "Steven"

    nameFormatter.style = .long
    nameFormatter.string(from: nameComps)   // "Mr. Steven Paul Jobs jr."

    nameFormatter.style = .abbreviated
    nameFormatter.string(from: nameComps)   // SJ

    // It can also be use to return an attributed string using annotatedString method
    nameFormatter.style = .long
    nameFormatter.annotatedString(from: nameComps)   // "Mr. Steven Paul Jobs jr."
}

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edit/update:

Swift 5 or later

For just splitting a string by non letter characters we can use the new Character property isLetter:

let fullName = "First Last"

let components = fullName.split{ !$0.isLetter }
print(components)  // "["First", "Last"]\n"