One .each func to rule them all

While translating some project code into Swift for fun, I started getting sick of using a ‘for’ loop to iterate over collection objects like Array, Dictionaries or tuples. There must be a better way!

Collection Each adds several methods via extensions to Dictionary and Array. This is a reasonable approach, but requires separate extensions for each class.

Luckily, there is one function to rule all Sequences :

 func each<S:Sequence, T where T==S.GeneratorType.Element>(sequence: S, callback:(T) -> Void) {
        for item in sequence {
            callback(item)
        }
    }

The beginning type specifiers are a little weird, so let’s walk through it. First, S is expected to be a type of Sequence. This represents a Tuple, Array, Dictionary, or any other class which implements the Sequence protocol. Sequences implement a generator which returns the next item in the sequence, or nil. Sequence.GeneratorType.Element is a type which corresponds to the ‘type’ of object within the sequence.

I first tried a simple (T) type with no specifiers, but this did not work, unfortunately. Our one .each method is callable with a trailing closure as:

[1,2,3,"bench!"].each {println($0)}

References: Mostly Software, Playing With Swift

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