arraysswiftbreakarray-reduce

Is there a way to break from an array's reduce function in Swift?


Is there a way to do something similar to break from a for loop but in array's reduce() function?

E.g. consider I have an array:

var flags = [false, false, true, false, false, true, false]

... and I need to get a cumulative || on them. With a for loop, the following would be possible:

var resultByFor = false

for flag in flags {
    if flag {
        resultByFor = true
        break
    }
}

... i.e. at the moment we get our first true there is no need to finish the loop as the result will be true anyway.

With reduce(), the following looks quite neat and tidy:

var resultByReduce = flags.reduce(false) { $0 || $1 }

However, with the array given in the example, the for loop body would be executed only 3 times, while reduce() function closure would get triggered full 7 times.

Is there a way to make reduce() to bail out on 3rd iteration as well (just like it can be done in for loop)?

[UPD]

I oversimplified the question. The original problem was more like this:

extension Int {
    func isWholeMultiplesOf(base: Int) -> Bool {
        return (self % base) == 0
    }
}

var numbers = [3, 5, 6, 7, 2, 3, 8]

var resultByFor = false

// The loop body will be triggered only 3 times
for number in numbers {
    if number.isWholeMultiplesOf(2) {
        resultByFor = true
        break
    }
}

// The closure of reduce() will be triggered 7 times
var resultByReduce = numbers.reduce(false) {
    $0 || $1.isWholeMultiplesOf(2)
}

... i.e. I have an array of objects and I want to know if there is at least one of them that has certain method evaluating to true.


Solution

  • As others have suggested, you can use contains for this purpose:

    var flags = [false, false, true, false, false, true, false]
    contains(flags, true) //--> true
    

    Another option is to use find to search for the first instance of what you're looking for, in this case true:

    var flags = [false, false, true, false, false, true, false]    
    find(flags, true) // --> 2, returns nil if not found
    let containsTrue = (find(flags, true) != nil)
    

    Edit: Newer versions of Swift expose these functions on the related collection protocols instead of global functions.

    var flags = [false, false, true, false, false, true, false]
    flags.contains(where: { $0 == true })
    flags.contains(true) // if checking for a specific element
    let index = flags.firstIndex(where: ${ $0 == true }) // --> 2