So I’m in the middle of trying to create a function that allows you to look up any element on an array. And this is where I’ve more or less hit a brick wall. This is the starting point function. Update: scroll down for more

extension Array {
    func indexOfElement<T:Equatable>(sought:T) -> Int? {
        for i in 0..self.count
        {
            if ((self[i] as? T) == sought)
            {
                return i
            }
        }
        return nil
    }
}

It works pretty well on all the following examples, letting me search through arrays regardless of parameter type.

let abc = ["a", "b", "c"]
abc.indexOfElement(77)
abc.indexOfElement("c")

let a01 = [0, 1, 5, 3, 9]
a01.indexOfElement(5)
a01.indexOfElement(99)
a01.indexOfElement("hello")

Here’s where it gets ugly. When I create an array with mixed elements, it completely fails. All of these test cases return nil.

// Miserable failure
let a02 : Array = [0, 1, "HELLO", 3, 9]
a02.indexOfElement("Cow")
a02.indexOfElement(9)
a02.indexOfElement("HELLO")

If you have any insight on what’s going wrong, I’d love to hear about it. The best I can figure at this point is that the a02 array is forced to be an NSArray rather than an Array, but I’m not sure of the details.

UPDATE: So after a bit of slogging, I confirmed that the mixed elements default to an NSArray. Adding an NSArray extension fixed the problem as you see below. Thanks everyone who commented, responded to me on Twitter, and in IRC.

import Foundation

let array1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
let array2 = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
let array3 = [1, 2, "a"]
let array4 = array3 as AnyObject[] // don't try to force this

// Oh this is interesting. They look different
println(array1)
println(array2)
println(array3)

// 3 appears to be an NSArray of some kind
println(array3 as NSArray)
println(array2 as NSArray)

// In addition to
extension Array {
    func indexOfElement(item:T) -> Int? {
        for i in 0..self.count
        {
            if ((self[i] as? T) == item)
            {
                return i
            }
        }
        return nil
    }
}

// Just add this
extension NSArray {
    func indexOfElement(item : AnyObject?) -> Int?
    {
        return self.indexOfObject(item)
    }
}

// And now these all work
array2.indexOfElement("c")
array2.indexOfElement(2)
array2.indexOfElement("d")
array3.indexOfElement(2)
array3.indexOfElement(1)
array3.indexOfElement("a")

// Just avoid doing stuff with array 4