我刚想出了一个巧妙的变通办法

var firstChar = Array(string)[0]

为了提供主题并显示快速下标的可能性，这里有一个基于“substring-toolbox”下标的小字符串

这些方法是安全的，并且不会遍历字符串索引

extension String {
    // string[i] -> one string char
    subscript(pos: Int) -> String { return String(Array(self)[min(self.length-1,max(0,pos))]) }

    // string[pos,len] -> substring from pos for len chars on the left
    subscript(pos: Int, len: Int) -> String { return self[pos, len, .pos_len, .left2right] }

    // string[pos, len, .right2left] -> substring from pos for len chars on the right
    subscript(pos: Int, len: Int, way: Way) -> String { return self[pos, len, .pos_len, way] }

    // string[range] -> substring form start pos on the left to end pos on the right
    subscript(range: Range<Int>) -> String { return self[range.startIndex, range.endIndex, .start_end, .left2right] }

    // string[range, .right2left] -> substring start pos on the right to end pos on the left
    subscript(range: Range<Int>, way: Way) -> String { return self[range.startIndex, range.endIndex, .start_end, way] }

    var length: Int { return countElements(self) }
    enum Mode { case pos_len, start_end }
    enum Way { case left2right, right2left }
    subscript(var val1: Int, var val2: Int, mode: Mode, way: Way) -> String {
        if mode == .start_end {
            if val1 > val2 { let val=val1 ; val1=val2 ; val2=val }
            val2 = val2-val1
        }
        if way == .left2right {
            val1 = min(self.length-1, max(0,val1))
            val2 = min(self.length-val1, max(1,val2))
        } else {
            let val1_ = val1
            val1 = min(self.length-1, max(0, self.length-val1_-val2 ))
            val2 = max(1, (self.length-1-val1_)-(val1-1) )
        }
        return self.bridgeToObjectiveC().substringWithRange(NSMakeRange(val1, val2))

        //-- Alternative code without bridge --
        //var range: Range<Int> = pos...(pos+len-1)
        //var start = advance(startIndex, range.startIndex)
        //var end = advance(startIndex, range.endIndex)
        //return self.substringWithRange(Range(start: start, end: end))
    }
}


println("0123456789"[3]) // return "3"

println("0123456789"[3,2]) // return "34"

println("0123456789"[3,2,.right2left]) // return "56"

println("0123456789"[5,10,.pos_len,.left2right]) // return "56789"

println("0123456789"[8,120,.pos_len,.right2left]) // return "01"

println("0123456789"[120,120,.pos_len,.left2right]) // return "9"

println("0123456789"[0...4]) // return "01234"

println("0123456789"[0..4]) // return "0123"

println("0123456789"[0...4,.right2left]) // return "56789"

println("0123456789"[4...0,.right2left]) // return "678" << because ??? range can wear endIndex at 0 ???

Swift 3:另一个解决方案(在操场测试)

extension String {
    func substr(_ start:Int, length:Int=0) -> String? {
        guard start > -1 else {
            return nil
        }

        let count = self.characters.count - 1

        guard start <= count else {
            return nil
        }

        let startOffset = max(0, start)
        let endOffset = length > 0 ? min(count, startOffset + length - 1) : count

        return self[self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: startOffset)...self.index(self.startIndex, offsetBy: endOffset)]
    }
}

用法:

let txt = "12345"

txt.substr(-1) //nil
txt.substr(0) //"12345"
txt.substr(0, length: 0) //"12345"
txt.substr(1) //"2345"
txt.substr(2) //"345"
txt.substr(3) //"45"
txt.substr(4) //"5"
txt.substr(6) //nil
txt.substr(0, length: 1) //"1"
txt.substr(1, length: 1) //"2"
txt.substr(2, length: 1) //"3"
txt.substr(3, length: 1) //"4"
txt.substr(3, length: 2) //"45"
txt.substr(3, length: 3) //"45"
txt.substr(4, length: 1) //"5"
txt.substr(4, length: 2) //"5"
txt.substr(5, length: 1) //nil
txt.substr(5, length: -1) //nil
txt.substr(-1, length: -1) //nil

使用字符就可以了。您可以快速地将字符串转换为字符数组，可以由CharacterView方法操作。

例子:

let myString = "Hello World!"
let myChars  = myString.characters

(完整的CharacterView文档)

(在Swift 3中测试)

Swift 2.2解决方案:

下面的扩展在Xcode 7中工作，这是这个解决方案和Swift 2.0语法转换的组合。

extension String {
    subscript(integerIndex: Int) -> Character {
        let index = startIndex.advancedBy(integerIndex)
        return self[index]
    }

    subscript(integerRange: Range<Int>) -> String {
        let start = startIndex.advancedBy(integerRange.startIndex)
        let end = startIndex.advancedBy(integerRange.endIndex)
        let range = start..<end
        return self[range]
    }
}

Swift 2.0的Xcode 7通用种子

var text = "Hello, world!"

let firstChar = text[text.startIndex.advancedBy(0)] // "H"

对于第n个字符，将0替换为n-1。

编辑:Swift 3.0

text[text.index(text.startIndex, offsetBy: 0)]

注意，有更简单的方法来获取字符串中的某些字符

例如:let firstChar = text.characters.first