What's the Best Way to Shuffle an NSMutableArray?

Question

If you have an NSMutableArray, how do you shuffle the elements randomly?

(I have my own answer for this, which is posted below, but I\'m new to Cocoa an

Answer 1

A slightly improved and concise solution (compared to the top answers).

The algorithm is the same and is described in literature as "Fisher-Yates shuffle".

In Objective-C:

@implementation NSMutableArray (Shuffle)
// Fisher-Yates shuffle
- (void)shuffle
{
    for (NSUInteger i = self.count; i > 1; i--)
        [self exchangeObjectAtIndex:i - 1 withObjectAtIndex:arc4random_uniform((u_int32_t)i)];
}
@end

In Swift 3.2 and 4.x:

extension Array {
    /// Fisher-Yates shuffle
    mutating func shuffle() {
        for i in stride(from: count - 1, to: 0, by: -1) {
            swapAt(i, Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(i + 1))))
        }
    }
}

In Swift 3.0 and 3.1:

extension Array {
    /// Fisher-Yates shuffle
    mutating func shuffle() {
        for i in stride(from: count - 1, to: 0, by: -1) {
            let j = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(i + 1)))
            (self[i], self[j]) = (self[j], self[i])
        }
    }
}

Note: A more concise solution in Swift is possible from iOS10 using GameplayKit.

Note: An algorithm for unstable shuffling (with all positions forced to change if count > 1) is also available