How to override localizedDescription for custom Error in Swift 3? [duplicate]

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The documentation about new Error bridging feature is not clear enough still now, so this answer may need some updates in the near future, but according to SE-0112 and the latest Swift source code, you may need to use LocalizedError rather than Error and implement errorDescription.

class MyError: NSObject, LocalizedError {
    var desc = ""
    init(str: String) {
        desc = str
    }
    override var description: String {
        get {
            return "MyError: \(desc)"
        }
    }
    //You need to implement `errorDescription`, not `localizedDescription`.
    var errorDescription: String? {
        get {
            return self.description
        }
    }
}

func test_my_code() {
    let error = MyError(str: "my test string")
    let x = error as Error
    print(x.localizedDescription)
}
test_my_code() //->MyError: my test string

Other than using LocalizedError, this default implementation works:

(NSError.swift, the link shown above)

public extension Error {
    /// Retrieve the localized description for this error.
    var localizedDescription: String {
        return NSError(domain: _domain, code: _code, userInfo: nil).localizedDescription
    }
}

It is a little complicated how Swift defines _domain or _code from arbitrary types just conforming to Error, but it seems that NSError generates “The operation couldn’t be completed…” for unknown combinations of domain and code.

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