AnyEquatable

Evolution Pitches
1

I often find myself wanting to store a type-erased Equatable value that does not conform to Hashable. We have AnyHashable, but I was surprised to learn that we don't have an equivalent AnyEquatable type. I've added this to my personal toolkit, but I think it could make a nice addition to the standard library.

struct AnyEquatable {
    let base: Any
    private let comparitor: (Any) -> Bool
    init<E>(_ base: E) where E : Equatable {
        self.base = base
        self.comparitor = { ($0 as? E) == base }
    }
}

extension AnyEquatable: Equatable {
    static func == (lhs: AnyEquatable, rhs: AnyEquatable) -> Bool {
        return lhs.comparitor(rhs.base) && rhs.comparitor(lhs.base)
    }
}

We should add the CustomDebugStringConvertible, CustomReflectable, and CustomStringConvertible conformances too, but I've omitted them for brevity.

9 Likes