Remove duplicates from array comparing the properties of its objects

Question

Suppose I have a class Event, and it has 2 properties: action (NSString) and date (NSDate).

And suppose I have an array of Event objects. The problem is that \"date\" pr

Answer 1

Here is working Swift code snipped which does remove duplicates while keeping the order of elements.

// Custom Struct. Can be also class. 
// Need to be `equitable` in order to use `contains` method below
struct CustomStruct : Equatable {
      let name: String
      let lastName : String
    }

// conform to Equatable protocol. feel free to change the logic of "equality"
func ==(lhs: CustomStruct, rhs: CustomStruct) -> Bool {
  return (lhs.name == rhs.name && lhs.lastName == rhs.lastName)
}

let categories = [CustomStruct(name: "name1", lastName: "lastName1"),
                  CustomStruct(name: "name2", lastName: "lastName1"),
                  CustomStruct(name: "name1", lastName: "lastName1")]
print(categories.count) // prints 3

// remove duplicates (and keep initial order of elements)
let uniq1 : [CustomStruct] = categories.reduce([]) { $0.contains($1) ? $0 : $0 + [$1] }
print(uniq1.count) // prints 2 - third element has removed

And just if you are wondering how this reduce magic works - here is exactly the same, but using more expanded reduce syntax

let uniq2 : [CustomStruct] = categories.reduce([]) { (result, category) in
  var newResult = result
  if (newResult.contains(category)) {}
  else {
    newResult.append(category)
  }
  return newResult
}
uniq2.count // prints 2 - third element has removed

You can simply copy-paste this code into a Swift Playground and play around.