How to find the difference between two arrays
Swift version: 5.2
If you have two arrays that contain similar items and want to find out their differences – i.e., which items exist in one or the other, but not both – the easiest thing to do is use a Set. Sets have a symmetricDifference() method that does exactly this, so you just need to convert both arrays to a set, then convert the result back into an array.
Here’s an extension to make it easier:
extension Array where Element: Hashable {
func difference(from other: [Element]) -> [Element] {
let thisSet = Set(self)
let otherSet = Set(other)
return Array(thisSet.symmetricDifference(otherSet))
}
}And here’s some example code you can use to try it out:
let names1 = ["John", "Paul", "Ringo"]
let names2 = ["Ringo", "Paul", "George"]
let difference = names1.difference(from: names2)That will set difference to be ["George", "John"], because those are the two names that only appear once in either array.
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