Array extension to remove object by value

Question

extension Array {
    func removeObject(object: T) {
        var index = find(self, object)
        self.removeAtIndex(index)
    }
}
         


        

Answer 1

There is another possibility of removing an item from an array without having possible unsafe usage, as the generic type of the object to remove cannot be the same as the type of the array. Using optionals is also not the perfect way to go as they are very slow. You could therefore use a closure like it is already used when sorting an array for example.

//removes the first item that is equal to the specified element
mutating func removeFirst(element: Element, equality: (Element, Element) -> Bool) -> Bool {
    for (index, item) in enumerate(self) {
        if equality(item, element) {
            self.removeAtIndex(index)
            return true
        }
    }
    return false
}

When you extend the Array class with this function you can remove elements by doing the following:

var array = ["Apple", "Banana", "Strawberry"]
array.removeFirst("Banana") { $0 == $1 } //Banana is now removed

However you could even remove an element only if it has the same memory address (only for classes conforming to AnyObject protocol, of course):

let date1 = NSDate()
let date2 = NSDate()
var array = [date1, date2]
array.removeFirst(NSDate()) { $0 === $1 } //won't do anything
array.removeFirst(date1) { $0 === $1 } //array now contains only 'date2'

The good thing is, that you can specify the parameter to compare. For example when you have an array of arrays, you can specify the equality closure as { $0.count == $1.count } and the first array having the same size as the one to remove is removed from the array.

You could even shorten the function call by having the function as mutating func removeFirst(equality: (Element) -> Bool) -> Bool, then replace the if-evaluation with equality(item) and call the function by array.removeFirst({ $0 == "Banana" }) for example.