Return array without first element with updated index (Swift)

Question

I have an array let animals = ["cat", "dog", "elephant"]

And I want to return a new array without first element, but when I use

let animalsWithoutCat = animals[1...animals.count - 1]
// or
let animalsWithoutCat = animals.dropFirst()

I get an array with animals' index, so "dog" is 1 and "elephant" is 2.

I want an array with updated index (started with 0). Fewer lines of code is preferred ))

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

What you want is the tail of the array.

If you implement it in an extension like this

extension Array {

  var tail: Array {
    return Array(self.dropFirst())
  }

}

you can call it like this:

let animals = ["cat", "dog", "elephant"]
let animalsWithoutCat = animals.tail

If the array is empty tail is an empty array.

Answer 2

Use:

let animals = ["cat", "dog", "elephant"]

var animalsWithoutCat = animals
animalsWithoutCat.removeFirst() // Removes first element ["dog", "elephant"]

Or us it as an extention:

extension Array {
func arrayWithoutFirstElement() -> Array {
    if count != 0 { // Check if Array is empty to prevent crash
        var newArray = Array(self)
        newArray.removeFirst()
        return newArray
    }
    return []
}

Simply call:

let animalsWithoutCat = animals.arrayWithoutFirstElement()