There are a few meta-types in Swift, two of which looks similar at phase value. But the difference can really end up biting you if you're not careful. But what exactly is the difference?

Pass by Reference vs. Value

The difference between Class and Struct basically boils down to what a prints in following sample:

     var a: Foo = Foo(bar: 1)
    var b = a
    	b.bar += 1
    print(a.bar)

In a case where Foo is a class, b and a references the same object, this is becaus class is pass by reference. This means modifying b also directly modifys a, and as such, a.bar is now 2.

Structs on the other hand are pass by value, meaning the object of a is getting copied into b

When should I use either?

Due to this behaviour, I personally prefer to use class to represent external data. This external data includes,

• databse table (fluent).
• external files and books
• windows.

All these changes at times, and beyond the developers control, as such I like to represent them as classes in my code, as references.

For everything else, I use structs wherever it makes semanthic sense to me. So that's data that's inside the app.