Removing Duplicates From Array of Custom Objects Swift

Here is an Array extension to return the unique list of objects based on a given key:

extension Array {
    func unique<T:Hashable>(map: ((Element) -> (T)))  -> [Element] {
        var set = Set<T>() //the unique list kept in a Set for fast retrieval
        var arrayOrdered = [Element]() //keeping the unique list of elements but ordered
        for value in self {
            if !set.contains(map(value)) {
                set.insert(map(value))
                arrayOrdered.append(value)
            }
        }

        return arrayOrdered
    }
}

for your example do:

let uniqueMessages = messages.unique{$0.id ?? ""}

You can do it with a set of strings, like this:

var seen = Set<String>()
var unique = [DisplayMessage]
for message in messagesWithDuplicates {
    if !seen.contains(message.id!) {
        unique.append(message)
        seen.insert(message.id!)
    }
}

The idea is to keep a set of all IDs that we've seen so far, go through all items in a loop, and add ones the IDs of which we have not seen.