How do I implement Swift's Comparable protocol?

Question

How do I use the Comparable protocol in Swift? In the declaration it says I\'d have to implement the three operations <, <= and >=. I put all those in the class but it

Answer 1

To implement Swift's Comparable protocol, you need to conform to the Equatable protocol first by implementing static func == (lhs: Self, rhs: Self) -> Bool, then implementing the only required function static func < (lhs: Self, rhs: Self) -> Bool for Comparable.

Instead of declaring global operator overloads, you should instead implement the protocol conforming methods within the struct/class itself. Although global operator overloads satisfy the protocol conformance, it's bad practice to declare them that way instead of the intended static methods on the struct/class.

If you look at the documentation example, you will see that the same is shown as sample code.

I would instead write the following:

class Person: Comparable {
    let name: String

    init(name: String) {
        self.name = name
    }

    static func < (lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.name < rhs.name
    }

    static func == (lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.name == rhs.name
    }
}

or even separate out the protocol conformance out of the class declaration like so:

class Person {
    let name: String

    init(name: String) {
        self.name = name
    }
}

extension Person: Comparable {
    static func < (lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.name < rhs.name
    }

    static func == (lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.name == rhs.name
    }
}

which would probably be closer to production level code.