Arrays vs sets vs tuples

Arrays, sets, and tuples can seem similar at first, but they have distinct uses. To help you know which to use, here are some rules.

If you need a specific, fixed collection of related values where each item has a precise position or name, you should use a tuple:

let address = (house: 555, street: "Taylor Swift Avenue", city: "Nashville")

If you need a collection of values that must be unique or you need to be able to check whether a specific item is in there extremely quickly, you should use a set:

let set = Set(["aardvark", "astronaut", "azalea"])

If you need a collection of values that can contain duplicates, or the order of your items matters, you should use an array:

let pythons = ["Eric", "Graham", "John", "Michael", "Terry", "Terry"]

Arrays are by far the most common of the three types.

SPONSORED Are you tired of wasting time debugging your Swift app? Instabug’s SDK is here to help you minimize debugging time by providing you with complete device details, network logs, and reproduction steps with every bug report. All data is attached automatically, and it only takes a line of code to setup. Start your free trial now and get 3 months off exclusively for the Hacking with Swift Community.

Start your free trial!

Sponsor Hacking with Swift and reach the world's largest Swift community!