Ios – The best way to remove duplicate values from NSMutableArray in Objective-C

For clarity I like to make an initial loop where I collect the items to delete. Then I delete them. Here's a sample using Objective-C 2.0 syntax:

NSMutableArray *discardedItems = [NSMutableArray array];

for (SomeObjectClass *item in originalArrayOfItems) {
    if ([item shouldBeDiscarded])
        [discardedItems addObject:item];
}

[originalArrayOfItems removeObjectsInArray:discardedItems];

Then there is no question about whether indices are being updated correctly, or other little bookkeeping details.

Edited to add:

It's been noted in other answers that the inverse formulation should be faster. i.e. If you iterate through the array and compose a new array of objects to keep, instead of objects to discard. That may be true (although what about the memory and processing cost of allocating a new array, and discarding the old one?) but even if it's faster it may not be as big a deal as it would be for a naive implementation, because NSArrays do not behave like "normal" arrays. They talk the talk but they walk a different walk. See a good analysis here:

The inverse formulation may be faster, but I've never needed to care whether it is, because the above formulation has always been fast enough for my needs.

For me the take-home message is to use whatever formulation is clearest to you. Optimize only if necessary. I personally find the above formulation clearest, which is why I use it. But if the inverse formulation is clearer to you, go for it.

There isn't, as others have already said, such a thing as a private method in Objective-C. However, starting in Objective-C 2.0 (meaning Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone OS 2.0, and later) you can create a category with an empty name (i.e. @interface MyClass ()) called Class Extension. What's unique about a class extension is that the method implementations must go in the same @implementation MyClass as the public methods. So I structure my classes like this:

In the .h file:

@interface MyClass {
    // My Instance Variables
}

- (void)myPublicMethod;

@end

And in the .m file:

@interface MyClass()

- (void)myPrivateMethod;

@end

@implementation MyClass

- (void)myPublicMethod {
    // Implementation goes here
}

- (void)myPrivateMethod {
    // Implementation goes here
}

@end

I think the greatest advantage of this approach is that it allows you to group your method implementations by functionality, not by the (sometimes arbitrary) public/private distinction.