[swift-evolution] Remove forEach?

[Craig Cruden]

I don’t see the benefit of taking a simple declarative expression (map, flatMap, filter) and turning it into a complicated imperative/iterative loop.  You already have the ability to iterate through a set and do whatever you want to do with with whatever logic you want to use using.  I would have no problem for the most part removing foreach - it is more of a convenience method for doing an iterative loop through a collection - and to be quite honest rarely use outside of maybe putting in a print statement temporarily in there (but more often just turn the resulting set into comma delimited output and printing it).  

 
> On 2015-12-31, at 5:10:22, Howard Lovatt via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> You could replace `forEach` with a supped up `map` that also allowed `break` and `continue`. The following library function gives `continue` and `break` and also combines `repeat`, `times`, `forEach`, `filter`, `flatMap`, and `map` into one:
> 
> public final class MapController<E, R> {
>     var results = [R]()
>     
>     var isContinuing = true
>     
>     init<C: CollectionType where C.Generator.Element == E>(_ collection: C, sizeEstimate: Int = 0, @noescape mapper: (controller: MapController<E, R>, element: E) throws -> R?) rethrows {
>         results.reserveCapacity(sizeEstimate)
>         for var generator = collection.generate(), element = generator.next(); element != nil && isContinuing; element = generator.next() {
>             let result = try mapper(controller: self, element: element!)
>             if let actualResult = result {
>                 results.append(actualResult)
>             }
>         }
>     }
> }
> 
> extension CollectionType {
>     /// Controllable `map`, additional controls beyond simple `map` are:
>     ///
>     ///   1. Continue without returning a result (`return nil`)
>     ///   2. Return multiple results (`control.results += [...]` then `return nil`)
>     ///   3. Break (`control.isContinuing = false` then `return nil`)
>     ///
>     /// These additional controls allow this `map` to function like `repeat`, `times`, `forEach`, `filter`, `flatMap`, and `map` combined into one as well as providing an early termination (break).
>     @warn_unused_result func map<R>(sizeEstimate sizeEstimate: Int = 0, @noescape mapper: (controller: MapController<Self.Generator.Element, R>, element: Self.Generator.Element) throws -> R?) rethrows -> [R] {
>         return try MapController(self, sizeEstimate: sizeEstimate, mapper: mapper).results
>     }
> }
> 
> // Demonstration of full functionality including continue, break, and multiple returns
> var result = (0 ..< 5).map { (control, index) -> Int? in
>     switch index {
>     case 1:
>         return nil // Continue - skip 1 (`filter`)
>     case 2:
>         control.results.append(2) // Yield two results - this one and the 'return’ yield (`flatMap`)
>     case 3:
>         control.isContinuing = false // Break after next yield - which could be `return nil` if there are no more results
>     default:
>         break
>     }
>     return index // Yield next result - except for case 1 all the above yield `index`
> }
> print(result) // prints `[0, 2, 2, 3]` note missing "1", double "2", and last is "3"
> 
> // Demonstration of `repeat`/`forEach`/`times` like usage - note `(_, _) -> Void?`
> result = [Int]()
> (0 ..< 3).map { (_, _) -> Void? in
>     result.append(1) // Do whatever - in this case append to a global
>     return nil // Don't yield any results
> }
> print(result) // prints `[1, 1, 1]`
> 
> Would this be a superior alternative to both `forEach` and `times` in the library and `repeat` as a language feature?
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
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