How do I sort an NSMutableArray with custom objects in it?

Question

What I want to do seems pretty simple, but I can\'t find any answers on the web. I have an NSMutableArray of objects, and let\'s say they are \'Person\' objects

Answer 1

Swift's protocols and functional programming makes that very easy you just have to make your class conform to the Comparable protocol, implement the methods required by the protocol and then use the sorted(by: ) high order function to create a sorted array without need to use mutable arrays by the way.

class Person: Comparable {
    var birthDate: NSDate?
    let name: String

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

    static func ==(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate === rhs.birthDate || lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedSame
    }

    static func <(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedAscending
    }

    static func >(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedDescending
    }

}

let p1 = Person(name: "Sasha")
p1.birthDate = NSDate() 

let p2 = Person(name: "James")
p2.birthDate = NSDate()//he is older by miliseconds

if p1 == p2 {
    print("they are the same") //they are not
}

let persons = [p1, p2]

//sort the array based on who is older
let sortedPersons = persons.sorted(by: {$0 > $1})

//print sasha which is p1
print(persons.first?.name)
//print James which is the "older"
print(sortedPersons.first?.name)