Copy An Array In Swift

In Swift, a popular task you might find yourself needing to accomplish involves copying an array. This article focuses on sharing a quick, easy method to do just that, allowing you to duplicate arrays with consummate ease.

Code snippet to Copy An Array in Swift

Assuming you have an existing array, we’ll call that existingArray. If you wanted to make a copy of existingArray, this is how you could do it:

let existingArray = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
let copiedArray = Array(existingArray)

Simply put, you’re initializing a new array (copiedArray) with the contents of existingArray.

Code Explanation for Copying an Array in Swift

These two lines of code suffice for duplicating an array in Swift. Here’s a detailed explanation:

The first line:

let existingArray = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

is where we declare and initialize an array existingArray that contains the numbers 1 through 5.

The second line:

let copiedArray = Array(existingArray)

is where the “magic” basically happens. Here, we are declaring a new constant copiedArray where we are initializing it as an Array, with existingArray as the parameter.

This essentially informs Swift that we want copiedArray to be a new array which has all of the elements of existingArray. Swift then makes a copy of existingArray and assigns it to copiedArray.

It’s important to note that changes made to existingArray will not impact copiedArray as this is a new array that just happens to have the same elements as existingArray at the point of its creation.

In Swift, this act is often referred to as array copying, wherein you create an entirely new array mirroring the content of the existing one. It is a simple yet very common operation in Swift programming, particularly when you want to replicate or manipulate data in different ways without affecting the original data.