Swift - if string is nil. don't add it to the array - arrays

I have an Array of Image links -
let alamofireSource = [AlamofireSource(urlString: Img1!)!, AlamofireSource(urlString: Img2!)!,
AlamofireSource(urlString: Img3!)!, AlamofireSource(urlString: Img4!)!]
slideshow.setImageInputs(alamofireSource)
some posts have only one image or two or three, and so on. so, sometimes image 2 (for example) is nil, In that case, I don't want it to be added to the array, is that possible?

You can try ( Swift 4 )
let arr = [img1,img2].compactMap{$0}.map{AlamofireSource(urlString:$0)!}
or
let arr = alamofireSource.compactMap{$0}
for Swift 3
let arr = alamofireSource.flatMap{$0}

so, sometimes image 2 (for example) is nil, In that case, I don't want
it to be added to the array, is that possible?
Yes it is. Although I would go with Sh_Khan's suggestion to use the compactMap method to achieve it, but it would be useless for your current case:
Based on your code snippet, I'd assume that alamofireSource of type [AlamofireSource], but not [AlamofireSource?] and that's because you are forcibly unwrap its elements (by adding ! to each of its elements). So far alamofireSource doesn't contain nils (actually it could be more danger than just a declaration, your app might crash!)
So first of all, I would recommend to remove the ! from alamofireSource:
let alamofireSource = [AlamofireSource(urlString: Img1!),
AlamofireSource(urlString: Img2!),
AlamofireSource(urlString: Img3!),
AlamofireSource(urlString: Img4!)]
which means let it be as [AlamofireSource?], therefore you would gain the benefit of using compactMap(_:):
Returns an array containing the non-nil results of calling the given
transformation with each element of this sequence.
As:
let alamofireSourceWihoutNils = alamofireSource.compactMap { $0 }

Assuming you put your Optional url strings into an array, say urlStrings (of type [String?]), you can construct alamofireSource according to (Swift 4):
let alamofireSource = urlStrings.compactMap { $0.map(AlamofireSource.init) }
Which make use of the map(_:) operator of Optional and compactMap(_:) to unwrap the two-level optionality.
Details
Your example contains two levels of optionality:
The optional ImgX arguments of type String? - henceforth referred to and named as img1, ..., img4, as CapitalFirstLetter names are reserved for e.g. types, not type instances.
The failable initilizer init?(urlString: String, placeholder: UIImage? = nil) of AlamofireSource.
First of all, lets gather the optional image links (imgX) into an array
let urlStrings = [url1, url2, url3, url4] // [String?]
Swift 4
You can combine the map(_:) operator of Optional with compactMap(_:) to safely unwrap and make use of the .some entires of urlStrings, thereafter collect the successful invocations of the failable initializer of AlamofireSource:
let alamofireSource = urlStrings.compactMap { $0.map(AlamofireSource.init) }
// or, use a named closure argument
let alamofireSource = urlStrings.compactMap { str in str.map(AlamofireSource.init) }
Swift 3
If using Swift 3, replace the compactMap(_:) invocation above with flatMap(_:):
let alamofireSource = urlStrings.flatMap { $0.map(AlamofireSource.init) }
// or, use a named closure argument
let alamofireSource = urlStrings.flatMap { str in str.map(AlamofireSource.init) }

Related

Better way to deal with optional variable and array operation in Swift

I have a following code, which copies an array of Rider objects, and appends a new Rider object if it exists.
let riders:[Rider] = getRiders()
let newRider:Rider? = mayGetNewRider()
var ridersPlus = riders
if let rider = newRider {
ridersPlus.append(rider)
}
I am looking for a better (simpler and easier to read) way to write this logic, which also allows me to define ridersPlus as "let" variable.
I am looking for something like below (which is invalid, because I made up the ??? syntax, which produces an empty array of newRider is nil).
let riders:[Rider] = getRiders()
let newRider:Rider? = mayGetNewRider()
let ridersPlus = riders + [newRider???]
How about
let ridersPlus = riders + [newRider].compactMap {$0}
(Note that before Swift 4, compactMap would be called flatMap. You didn't say what Swift version you are using.)
You do it with map and the nil coalescing operator ??:
let ridersPlus = riders + (newRider.map {[$0]} ?? [])
map when called on an Optional value evaluates the given closure when the Optional instance is not nil, passing the unwrapped value as a parameter. If the Optional is nil, the result of the map is nil. Combining that with the nil coalescing operator, the resulting Optional array can be unwrapped or replaced with [] and then added to the riders array.

Extract an array from a collection [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Get an array of property values from an object array
(2 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I get an element from a collection with this code:
modelCollec[indexPath].model
I want to get all models in an array. Is there a function or shall I write a loop?
There is only one row so indexPath is always [0, index].
Use flatMap for that.
let modelArray = modelCollec.flatMap { $0.model }
modelArray type is [model].
For eg:
struct Person {
var name: String
}
Now if you have array of person and you want array of name from it you can get it using flatMap like this way.
let persons = [Person]()
let nameArray = persons.flatMap { $0.name } //nameArray type is [String]
Note: You can also use map instead of flatMap but it will give you optional objects if your model property is optional so it may contains nil where as flatMap ignore the nil object.
If you always want to access the 1st element of the collection then it is a better idea to hardcode the 0 index rather than using loop, however to it is always better to put a check for nil.

can you declare an empty array, without knowing the type in swift

for example:
let myArray:[] = []
or
let myArray = []
The first one is not possible (it will complain about expected element type) If you don't know the element type you can use AnyObject but if you know the type of it you have to put it there (Int,Double,String, AnyObject, etc...).
var myArrayOfDoubles:[Double] = []
The second one (when omitting the type) is OK ONLY if you initialize it with some values but If you try it with an empty array you won't be able to append anything (at least using Playground) saying that NSArray does not have a member named append.
var myArrayOfInts = [1,2,3,4,5] // [Int]
var myArrayOfAnyObject:[AnyObject] = [] // [AnyObject]
And finally last but not least you have to define it as var because if you define it using let it will stay empty forever :)
Yes, you can, it can be Any or Anyobject...
example:
var noTypeArray = [Any]()
If you want to fill the array eventually it may be var, no let, there's no point otherwise.
No. If you don't know what will go in use this:
var myArray = [Any]()
Apple has introduced a Type-GeStaPo and you must type anything that's not up the tree at count three.
To add to this use
myArray.append("this")
myArray.append(1)
myArray.append(myObject)

Unwrap Sparse Array in Swift

I'd like to write an extension for Array which safely returns an unwrapped version of itself.
I can do it with a generic method like so:
func unwrapElements<T>(array: [T?]) -> [T] {
let filtered: [T?] = array.filter{ $0 != nil }
let unwrapped: [T] = filtered.map { $0! }
return unwrapped
}
And I can call it like this:
let sparseNames: [String?] = ["alice", "bob", nil, "doug", nil, nil, "george", "hubert"]
let names: [String] = unwrapElements(sparseNames)
where names ends up being ["alice", "bob", "doug", "george", "hubert"] and is safe to iterate and work with each element.
However, I want to call it like this:
let names = sparseNames.unwrapElements()
I've seen a few similar questions (like this one) but they don't address how to create the method as an extension.
(this is tagged with Xcode6.1 to denote the version of Swift I'm using)
Note: Swift 1.2 Beta 3 has introduced the flatMap function which helps with optionally chaining arrays. See this excellent blog post here
You can't do this right now in Swift. To add that function as an extension to Array, you'd have to mark somehow that it's only callable with certain kinds of arrays: those with optional values as the subtype. Unfortunately, you can't further specialize a generic type, so global functions are the only way possible.
This is the same reason Array has a sort method that takes a comparison function as a parameter, but it doesn't have a sort that "just works" if the array is full of Comparable members - to get that kind of function, you have to look at the top-level sort:
func sort<T : Comparable>(inout array: [T])
Have you tried using filter and map for that?
let array: [String?] = ["Hello", nil, "World"]
let unwrapped = array.map{$0 ?? nil}.filter{$0 != nil}.map{$0!}
println("unwrapped: \(unwrapped)")
// prints "unwrapped: [Hello, World]"
The first map uses the Nil Coalescing Operator to unwrap if possible. Although, I return nil regardless since the following filter removes all nil values. The last map does the actual unwrapping.
You can do this. Here is how:
extension Array {
func catOptionals<A>() -> [A] where Element == A? {
return self.flatMap{ $0 }
}
}

Cannot assign to "" in "self" - Working with Tuples in Swift

I have to classes: FirstViewController and PlanGenerator.
PlanGenerator has a method called getPlanForIndex (day:Int) -> ([PlanElement], [PlanElement])?. It is returning two different Arrays, both containing Object of Plan Element.
getPlanForIndex (day:Int) -> ([PlanElement], [PlanElement])? {
// Do some work and fill arrays
return (firstArray, secondArray)
}
In the FirstViewController I've created two Properties:
let plan:[PlanElement] = [PlanElement]()
let planGen:PlanGenerator = PlanGenerator()
FirstViewControllerhas a method called:
func prepareView () {
plan = planGen.getPlanForIndex(dayIndex)
}
But when I want to call this, I get the error message:
Cannot assign to 'plan' in 'self'
First, your plan member is a constant (declared with let), and you're assigning to it outside of init. If you want to assign to it after initialization, it needs to be declared with var.
Also, your getPlanForIndex returns a tuple, and you're assigning it to a member of singular (not tuple) type. If you want to assign one part of a tuple only, do it like this:
(plan, _) = planGen.getPlanForIndex(dayIndex)
That assigns a tuple to a tuple, satisfying the compiler, but discards the second element.
If you instead want plan to be a tuple, you'll have to declare and initialize it as such. Looks from the comments like you figured out a way to do that, but here's a way with minimal typing (in either sense of the word):
var plan: ([PlanElement], [PlanElement]) = ([], [])
(Once you've declared the type of array, [] is understood to be an empty array of that type. Just var plan = ([], []) leaves the type ambiguous.)

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