Sorting Array in Swift3

Question

In my code, I have a struct like the following:

struct Object {
    var name: String
    var count: Int

I am now creating an array of 10 Object

Answer 1

If you want to sort alphabetically and then numerically, you can:

var array = ["A2", "B7", "A4", "C3", "A1", "A10"]
array.sort { $0.compare($1, options: .numeric) == .orderedAscending }

That produces:

["A1", "A2", "A4", "A10", "B7", "C3"]

I added A10 to your array, because without it, a simple alphabetic sort would have been sufficient. But I'm assuming you wanted A10 after A4, in which case the numeric comparison will do the job for you.

---

You changed the example to be a struct with two properties. In that case, you can do something like:

struct Foo {
    var name: String
    var count: Int
}

var array = [
    Foo(name:"A", count: 2),
    Foo(name:"B", count: 7),
    Foo(name:"A", count: 7),
    Foo(name:"C", count: 3),
    Foo(name:"A", count: 1),
    Foo(name:"A", count: 10)
]

array.sort { (object1, object2) -> Bool in
    if object1.name == object2.name {
        return object1.count < object2.count
    } else {
        return object1.name < object2.name
    }
}

Or, more concisely:

array.sort { $0.name == $1.name ? $0.count < $1.count : $0.name < $1.name }

Or

array.sort { ($0.name, $0.count) < ($1.name, $1.count) }

Note, rather than putting this logic in the closure, I'd actually make Foo conform to Comparable:

struct Foo {
    var name: String
    var count: Int
}

extension Foo: Equatable {
    static func ==(lhs: Foo, rhs: Foo) -> Bool {
        return (lhs.name, lhs.count) == (rhs.name, rhs.count)
    }
}

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

This keeps the comparison logic nicely encapsulated within the Foo type, where it belongs.

Then you can just do the following to sort in place:

var array = ...
array.sort()

Or, alternatively, you can return a new array if you don't want to sort the original one in place:

let array = ...
let sortedArray = array.sorted()