How do I shuffle an array in Swift?

Question

How do I randomize or shuffle the elements within an array in Swift? For example, if my array consists of 52 playing cards, I want to shuffle the array in o

Answer 1

This is a version of Nate's implementation of the Fisher-Yates shuffle for Swift 4 (Xcode 9).

extension MutableCollection {
    /// Shuffle the elements of `self` in-place.
    mutating func shuffle() {
        for i in indices.dropLast() {
            let diff = distance(from: i, to: endIndex)
            let j = index(i, offsetBy: numericCast(arc4random_uniform(numericCast(diff))))
            swapAt(i, j)
        }
    }
}

extension Collection {
    /// Return a copy of `self` with its elements shuffled
    func shuffled() -> [Element] {
        var list = Array(self)
        list.shuffle()
        return list
    }
}

The changes are:

• The constraint Indices.Iterator.Element == Index is now part of the Collection protocol, and need not be imposed on the extension anymore.
• Exchanging elements must done by calling swapAt() on the collection, compare SE-0173 Add MutableCollection.swapAt(_:_:).
• Element is an alias for Iterator.Element.

Answer 2

This is how its done in a Simplest way.import Gamplaykit to your VC and use the below code. Tested in Xcode 8.

 import GameplayKit

 let array: NSArray = ["Jock", "Ellie", "Sue Ellen", "Bobby", "JR", "Pamela"]

 override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    print(array.shuffled())  
}

If you want to get a shuffled String from an Array you can use below code..

func suffleString() {

    let ShuffleArray = array.shuffled()

    suffleString.text = ShuffleArray.first as? String

    print(suffleString.text!)

}

Answer 3

works!!. organisms is the array to shuffle.

extension Array
{
    /** Randomizes the order of an array's elements. */
    mutating func shuffle()
    {
        for _ in 0..<10
        {
            sort { (_,_) in arc4random() < arc4random() }
        }
    }
}

var organisms = [
    "ant",  "bacteria", "cougar",
    "dog",  "elephant", "firefly",
    "goat", "hedgehog", "iguana"]

print("Original: \(organisms)")

organisms.shuffle()

print("Shuffled: \(organisms)")

Answer 4

Taking Nate's algorithm I wanted to see how this would look with Swift 2 and protocol extensions.

This is what I came up with.

extension MutableCollectionType where Self.Index == Int {
    mutating func shuffleInPlace() {
        let c = self.count
        for i in 0..<(c - 1) {
            let j = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(c - i))) + i
            swap(&self[i], &self[j])
        }
    }
}

extension MutableCollectionType where Self.Index == Int {
    func shuffle() -> Self {
        var r = self
        let c = self.count
        for i in 0..<(c - 1) {
            let j = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(c - i))) + i
            swap(&r[i], &r[j])
        }
        return r
    }
}

Now, any MutableCollectionType can use these methods given it uses Int as an Index

Answer 5

This is what I use:

func newShuffledArray(array:NSArray) -> NSArray {
    var mutableArray = array.mutableCopy() as! NSMutableArray
    var count = mutableArray.count
    if count>1 {
        for var i=count-1;i>0;--i{
            mutableArray.exchangeObjectAtIndex(i, withObjectAtIndex: Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(i+1))))
        }
    }
    return mutableArray as NSArray
}

Answer 6

This is how to shuffle one array with a seed in Swift 3.0.

extension MutableCollection where Indices.Iterator.Element == Index {
    mutating func shuffle() {
        let c = count
        guard c > 1 else { return }


        for (firstUnshuffled , unshuffledCount) in zip(indices, stride(from: c, to: 1, by: -1)) {
            srand48(seedNumber)
            let number:Int = numericCast(unshuffledCount)
            let r = floor(drand48() * Double(number))

            let d: IndexDistance = numericCast(Int(r))
            guard d != 0 else { continue }
            let i = index(firstUnshuffled, offsetBy: d)
            swap(&self[firstUnshuffled], &self[i])
        }
    }
}