Swift/iOS: How to use inout parameters in functions with AnyObject/Any or Pointers

Better you can create a generic method like below:

func setValue<T>(inout object:T, key: String) {
    switch key {
    case "String":
        object = ("A String" as? T)!
    case "UIColor":
        object = (UIColor.whiteColor() as? T)!
    case "Bool":
        object = (true as? T)!
    default:
        println("Unhandled key: \(key)")
    }
}

And calling will be like this:

setValue(&string, key: "String")
setValue(&color, key: "UIColor")
setValue(&bool, key: "Bool")

Hope it helps!

The right way to do this is to use overloading, and letting the compiler choose the appropriate bit of code at compile time, instead of switching off a string at runtime:

func setValue(inout object: String) {
    object = "A String"
}

func setValue(inout object: UIColor) {
    object = UIColor.whiteColor()
}

func setValue(inout object: Bool) {
    object = true
}

func setValue(inout object: Any) {
    println("Unhandled key: \(key)")
}

This approach wouldn’t work when you have an Any and you want to indicate to the function what type is contained in the Any… but in this case, the reason you have problems is that the compiler does know what the types are, so you can take advantage of that.