How To Check If An Element Is In An Array In Swift

Swift makes it easy to check if an element is in an array

Use The Contains Method

The contains method in Swift is the best way to check if an element is in an array:

let myArray = [1, 2, 3]
if myArray.contains(3) {
    print("found element")
}

The contain method returns a boolean.

Note that this requires the elements of the array conform to the Equatable protocol.

How To Remove Specific Element In Array

Sometimes you want to check if an array element exists, and if it does, you want to remove it.

var myArray = [1, 2, 3]
if let index = myArray.firstIndex(of: 3) {
    myArray.remove(at: index)
}

The index function returns an integer of where the object is in the array.

Note that the remove function only removes the first element of the array.

Get All Instances Of A Specific Object In An Array

let myArray = [1, 2, 3, 3, 3]
let results = myArray.filter { $0 == 3 }
print(results)

This prints:

[3, 3, 3]

Note we could check if this results array is empty to see if there are any elements:

if results.isEmpty {
  print("not found!")
} else {
  print("found!")
}

Get The Count Of A Certain Element In An Array

To get the count, simply add a .count to the end of our code.

let myArray = [1, 2, 3, 3, 3]
let results = myArray.filter { $0 == 3 }
print(results.count)

This results in

3

Remove All Instances Of A Specific Object In An Array

Use the filter and set your condition.

let myArray = [1, 2, 3, 3, 3]
let results = myArray.filter { $0 != 3 }
print(results)

Here, we set our condition to != 3 so the results array will only contain elements that are not 3.

The above code prints:

[1, 2]

Get All Objects That Match A Property

Say we have a custom class named MyClass. We can get all elements that match a certain property by using filter again.

class MyClass {
  var someProperty: Int

    init(someProperty: Int) {
        self.someProperty = someProperty
    }
}

let myClassArray: [MyClass] = [MyClass(someProperty: 2), MyClass(someProperty: 3)]

let results = myClassArray.filter {$0.someProperty == 2}

print(results[0].someProperty)
print(results.count)

This prints:

2
1