Extracting a String from a [String: Any?] by key

var annoying: [String: Any?]

To get the 'height' value, the best I could come up with is this,

let found: String = (annoying["height"] as? String? ?? "?") ?? "?"

1. That seems very bad, is there a better way?

2. Indeed, ideally I'd like

   let found: String? = :O

So it's nil if the key does not exist -or- the value is nil -or- the value is not a String - but, I literally, don't know how to do that and every attempt failed :/

(I just make do with the "?" marker in the first solution.)

You can simply do

let found = annoying["height"] as? String

Requirements

it's nil if the key does not exist

let annoying: [String: Any?] = [:]
let found = annoying["height"] as? String
// nil

-or- the value is nil

let annoying: [String: Any?] = ["height":nil]
let found = annoying["height"] as? String
// nil

-or- the value is not a String

let annoying: [String: Any?] = ["height":42]
let found = annoying["height"] as? String
// nil

And it works for string keys:

let annoying: [String: Any?] = ["height":"10m"]
let found = annoying["height"] as? String
// "10m"