Uncovering the Power of isEmpty in Swift Arrays

When working with arrays in Swift, it’s essential to know whether they contain elements or not. This is where the isEmpty property comes into play, providing a simple yet effective way to check the status of your arrays.

The Syntax Behind isEmpty

The isEmpty property is a part of the Array class, and its syntax is straightforward: array.isEmpty. Here, array is an object of the Array class.

Understanding the Return Values

So, what does isEmpty return? It’s simple:

• true if the array is empty, meaning it doesn’t contain any elements.
• false if the array contains some elements.

Real-World Examples

Let’s see isEmpty in action with two examples:

Example 1: A Tale of Two Arrays

Consider the following code:

let names = ["John", "Alice", "Bob"]
let employees: [String] = []

print(names.isEmpty) // Output: false
print(employees.isEmpty) // Output: true

As expected, names returns false since it contains three string elements, while employees returns true because it’s an empty array.

Example 2: Conditional Logic with isEmpty

Now, let’s use isEmpty with an if…else statement:

let names: [String] = []

if names.isEmpty {
    print("The names array is empty.")
} else {
    print("The names array contains elements.")
}

In this case, since names is an empty array, the if block is executed, and the output is “The names array is empty.“