Fetching the last element to satisfy a condition in Swift arrays

Overview

We use the last(where:) method to get the last element of an array that satisfies a given condition.

Syntax

arr.last(where: condition)

Parameters

arr: This is the array for which we want to find the last element, in order to satisfy a given condition.

Condition: This closure takes an array element as its argument and returns a Boolean value, indicating whether the element matches the condition.

Return value

What is returned is the last element of the array that satisfies the condition. Otherwise, nothing is returned if there is no element that satisfies the condition.

Code

let evenNumbers = [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
let twoLetterWords = ["up", "go", "me", "we"] 
let numbers = [2, 3, -4, 5, -9]
// invoke the last(where:) method
let lastGreaterThanFive = evenNumbers.last(where: {$0 >= 5})!
let lastTwoLetters = twoLetterWords.last(where: {$0.count == 2})!
let lastNegative = numbers.last(where: {$0 < 0})!
// print results
print(lastGreaterThanFive)
print(lastTwoLetters)
print(lastNegative)

Explanation

  • Lines 1-3: We create three arrays.
  • Lines 6-8: We invoke the last(where:) method on the arrays we created and store the returned results in some variables.
  • Lines 11-13: We print the results.

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