What's the cleanest way of applying map() to a dictionary in Swift?

Swift 4+

Good news! Swift 4 includes a mapValues(_:) method which constructs a copy of a dictionary with the same keys, but different values. It also includes a filter(_:) overload which returns a Dictionary, and init(uniqueKeysWithValues:) and init(_:uniquingKeysWith:) initializers to create a Dictionary from an arbitrary sequence of tuples. That means that, if you want to change both the keys and values, you can say something like:

let newDict = Dictionary(uniqueKeysWithValues:
    oldDict.map { key, value in (key.uppercased(), value.lowercased()) })

There are also new APIs for merging dictionaries together, substituting a default value for missing elements, grouping values (converting a collection into a dictionary of arrays, keyed by the result of mapping the collection over some function), and more.

During discussion of the proposal, SE-0165, that introduced these features, I brought up this Stack Overflow answer several times, and I think the sheer number of upvotes helped demonstrate the demand. So thanks for your help making Swift better!


With Swift 5, you can use one of the five following snippets in order to solve your problem.

#1. Using Dictionary mapValues(_:) method

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

let newDictionary = dictionary.mapValues { value in
    return value + 1
}
//let newDictionary = dictionary.mapValues { $0 + 1 } // also works

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

#2. Using Dictionary map method and init(uniqueKeysWithValues:) initializer

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

let tupleArray = dictionary.map { (key: String, value: Int) in
    return (key, value + 1)
}
//let tupleArray = dictionary.map { ($0, $1 + 1) } // also works

let newDictionary = Dictionary(uniqueKeysWithValues: tupleArray)

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

#3. Using Dictionary reduce(_:_:) method or reduce(into:_:) method

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

let newDictionary = dictionary.reduce([:]) { (partialResult: [String: Int], tuple: (key: String, value: Int)) in
    var result = partialResult
    result[tuple.key] = tuple.value + 1
    return result
}

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

let newDictionary = dictionary.reduce(into: [:]) { (result: inout [String: Int], tuple: (key: String, value: Int)) in
    result[tuple.key] = tuple.value + 1
}

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

#4. Using Dictionary subscript(_:default:) subscript

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

var newDictionary = [String: Int]()
for (key, value) in dictionary {
    newDictionary[key, default: value] += 1
}

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

#5. Using Dictionary subscript(_:) subscript

let dictionary = ["foo": 1, "bar": 2, "baz": 5]

var newDictionary = [String: Int]()
for (key, value) in dictionary {
    newDictionary[key] = value + 1
}

print(newDictionary) // prints: ["baz": 6, "foo": 2, "bar": 3]

While most of the answers here focus on how to map the entire dictionary (keys and values), the question really only wanted to map the values. This is an important distinction since mapping values allows you to guarantee the same number of entries, whereas mapping both key and value might result in duplicate keys.

Here’s an extension, mapValues, that allows you to map just the values. Note it also extends dictionary with an init from a sequence of key/value pairs, which is a bit more general than initializing it from an array:

extension Dictionary {
    init<S: SequenceType where S.Generator.Element == Element>
      (_ seq: S) {
        self.init()
        for (k,v) in seq {
            self[k] = v
        }
    }

    func mapValues<T>(transform: Value->T) -> Dictionary<Key,T> {
        return Dictionary<Key,T>(zip(self.keys, self.values.map(transform)))
    }

}

Tags:

Dictionary

Swift

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