Functional programming way of doing array conversion - swift

Question

struct MapVector {
var distance: Double
var bearing: Double
}
func distanceAndBearing() -> [MapVector] {
var points = self.mapPoints
var currPoint:CLLocation = points.first!
points.removeAtIndex(0)
var result: [MapVector] = []
for point: CLLocation in points {
let calc = PointCalculator(initialPoint: currPoint, nextPoint: point)
let v = MapVector(distance: calc.pointDistance, bearing: calc.bearing)
result.append(v)
currPoint = point
}
return result
}
I am working in Swift on an application using map coordinates. I have a an array of CLLocations from which I would like to create an array of distances and bearings. The above code (its slightly simplified for readability, so may not be 100% correct) achieves that but I'd like to do it in a neater way. Is this something that can be done with map or filter? Still trying to get my head around the FP way of doing things.

Answer 1

Here is a simplified example for the same problem except the calculations:
let numbers = [3, 7, 2, 8, 3, 7, 5]
let result = numbers.isEmpty ? [] :
map(zip(numbers, numbers[1..<numbers.count])) {
(x, y) in
return (diff: x - y, mult: x * y)
}
result[0].diff // -4
result[0].mult // 21
Here I compute the differences and the multiplications of the numbers.
Note this will work only for Swift 1.2
In case you need it for earlier version, you should explore the use of Zip2.

Answer 2

For reference here are alternative solutions I came up with:-
func distanceAndBearing2() -> [MapVector]
{
// make the removeAtIndex(0) part safe
if (self.mapPoints.count == 0) {
return []
}
var t2 = self.mapPoints
t2.removeAtIndex(0)
let t3 = zip(self.mapPoints, t2)
return Array(t3).map({
(p1, p2) in
return PointCalculator(initialPoint: p1, nextPoint: p2).toMapVector()
})
}
This uses the new zip method from Xcode 6.3 Beta 2, and I moved the conversion to MapVector into the PointCalculator struct
func distanceAndBearing3() -> [MapVector] {
// make the shift part safe
if (self.mapPoints.count == 0) {
return []
}
var points = self.mapPoints
var currPoint = points.shift()!
return points.map {
point in
let initialPoint = currPoint
currPoint = point
return LocationPair(initialPoint: initialPoint,
nextPoint: point).toMapVector()
}
}
And this version uses the same toMapVector method on the PointCalculator struct, but uses a variable outside the map function which is updated by the map function; this feels like its not "correct"