There are some times in Swift, like when using System Trace, that you want to get the pointer value of an object directly as a UInt (passing the pointer to kdebug_signpost is one). I was surprised at how hard it was to find documentation on how to get a Swift reference’s pointer value as a UInt. Here’s how to do it, using the UInt(bitPattern:) initializer:

_ = withUnsafePointer(to: myObject) { unsafePointer in
    let pointerValue = UInt(bitPattern: unsafePointer)
    // do whatever with pointerValue: it's a UInt!
}