Sorting the [Any] array

Question

Given an array defined as follow

let list: [Any]

I want to sort it WHEN

1. all the values inside it have the sa

Answer 1

If your use case allows you to provide a hint to the compiler, you could specify a filter on the type of output that you want:

extension _ArrayType where Generator.Element == Any {

    func filterByType() -> [T] {

        var output = [T]()

        for i in self {
            if let j = i as? T {
                output.append(j)
            }
        }

        return output
    }
}

If the input array does not contain any elements of the specified type then it will just return an empty array. If the type is not a Comparable, then the code won't event compile.

Example:

let list: [Any] = [10, "Hello", 3, false, "Foo", "Bar", 1] // Values of different types

var output = list.filterByType() as [Int]
output.sortInPlace()