[Swift 2.0]

Subtle differences in implementing Equatable protocol for NSObject subclasses in Swift 1.2 and 2.0.

The best way to read this post is in Xcode playground, so go ahead and Download Playground

Equatable

Instances of the type that conform to Equatable protocol can be compared for value equality using operators == and !=.

When adopting Equatable, only the == operator is required to be implemented. The standard library provides an implementation for !=.

This was pretty much a copy-paste from documentation. Let’s try it in practice.

Swift Structs

If you just have a simple struct, you will not be able to compare two instances of it.

struct CardStruct {
    let rank: Int

    init(rank: Int) {
        self.rank = rank
    }
}

Uncomment next line to see the following error:

Error: Binary operator == cannot be applied to two CardStruct operands

//print(CardStruct(rank: 4) == CardStruct(rank: 4))

To fix it, make sure that your structure conforms to Equatable protocol first.

struct EquatableCardStruct: Equatable {
    let rank: Int

    init(rank: Int) {
        self.rank = rank
    }
}

Then implement == operator as prescribed by Equatable.

func ==(lhs: EquatableCardStruct, rhs: EquatableCardStruct) -> Bool {
    return lhs.rank == rhs.rank
}

Now two instances of EquatableCardStruct are equal if they have the same rank.

print(EquatableCardStruct(rank: 5) == EquatableCardStruct(rank: 5))
// true

print(EquatableCardStruct(rank: 5) == EquatableCardStruct(rank: 3))
// false

Since collection types are equatable by default, you can equate two arrays of EquatableCardStructs as well with no additional effort.

let equatableCardStructs1 = [EquatableCardStruct(rank: 1), EquatableCardStruct(rank: 2), EquatableCardStruct(rank: 3)]
let equatableCardStructs2 = [EquatableCardStruct(rank: 1), EquatableCardStruct(rank: 2), EquatableCardStruct(rank: 3)]

print(equatableCardStructs1 == equatableCardStructs2)
// true
print([EquatableCardStruct(rank: 2)] == [EquatableCardStruct(rank: 5)])
// false

NSObject Subclass

So it all works well for structs, but what if you are dealing with NSObject subclass? Let’s declare one to start with.

class CardObject: NSObject {
    var rank: Int

    init(rank: Int) {
        self.rank = rank
    }
}

Now pay close attention to next line.

With Swift 1.2 (Xcode 6.3.2) it will work fine, uncomment and see for yourself.

With Swift 2.0 (Xcode 7) it will produce a compiler error.

Error: Redundant conformance of ‘CardObject’ to protocol ‘Equatable’

// This is "line 93" for future reference
//extension CardObject: Equatable {}

Usual implementation for ==.

func ==(left: CardObject, right: CardObject) -> Bool {
    return left.rank == right.rank
}

Now let’s try to equate some objects.

Look at the next two lines while using Swift 1.2. Notice that commenting and uncommenting line 93 doesn’t change the behavior. Despite the fact that CardObject is not declared to conform to Equatable, the code still works. Most likely this is due to the fact that all code is in one playground, this == operator would most definitely fail if it were in another file.

print(CardObject(rank: 5) == CardObject(rank: 5))
// true

print(CardObject(rank: 5) == CardObject(rank: 3))
// false

This is where we can verify previous statement. Again, toggle comments on line 93 to see how result of the next == changes.

let cardObjects1 = [CardObject(rank: 1), CardObject(rank: 2), CardObject(rank: 3)]
let cardObjects2 = [CardObject(rank: 1), CardObject(rank: 2), CardObject(rank: 3)]
print(cardObjects1 == cardObjects2)
// false when line 93 commented
// true otherwise

So when CardObject is conforming to Equatable explicitly equating collections works as expected, otherwise it doesn’t, most likely isEqual: method of NSObject is used, which compares object hashes.

But give it a try with Swift 2.0 now. First of all you will be told that NSObject already conforms to Equatable, so line 93 has redundand conformance. Once you comment that line cardObjects1 and cardObjects2 are not equal any more, because it’s all back to comparing hash values now.

In order to fix this problem, you will have to override isEqual method.

class EquatableCardObject: NSObject {
    var rank: Int

    init(rank: Int) {
        self.rank = rank
    }

    override func isEqual(object: AnyObject?) -> Bool {
        if let rhs = object as? EquatableCardObject {
            return rank == rhs.rank
        }
        return false
    }
}

This class is almost identical to CardObject, except for the isEqual method. Another difference is that there’s no global == implemented to compare 2 instances of EquatableCardObject.

Nevertheless the comparison works.

print(EquatableCardObject(rank: 5) == EquatableCardObject(rank: 5))
// true

print(EquatableCardObject(rank: 5) == EquatableCardObject(rank: 3))
// false

And not just for single values, but for arrays as well.

let equatableCardObjects1 = [EquatableCardObject(rank: 1), EquatableCardObject(rank: 2), EquatableCardObject(rank: 3)]
let equatableCardObjects2 = [EquatableCardObject(rank: 1), EquatableCardObject(rank: 2), EquatableCardObject(rank: 3)]
print(equatableCardObjects1 == equatableCardObjects2)
// true

Summary

This sure looks like a breaking change from 1.2 to 2.0. I wonder if that’s intentional or not. It does look strange that writing implementation of == operator doesn’t actually change anything, in fact, it is never even called for NSObject subclasses, but then the whole conformance to Equatable is broken.