Swift 3: Remove specific string from array without knowing the indexPath?

Question

I have a UICollectionView that has a bunch of cells. When I select these cells, they change color to look as if they have clearly been selected and I append that hashtag.hashtag_name (String) to my hashtagsArray. If I tap a category (fashion, food, hobbies or music), I append another array to that index path to give the user the cells for that specific category as you can see in my image example below.

What I would like is if I tap a already SELECTED cell to UNSELECT it, for that hashtag.hashtag_name to be removed from my hashtagArray. The issue is that the indexPath for the array that I add in is completely different to the array indexPath when I append it into the hashtagArray so I cannot remove it by calling self.hashtagArray.remove(Int). Here's my code...

import UIKit

class Hashtag: NSObject {

    var hashtag_name: String?
    var hashtag_color: String?
}

import UIKit

private let reuseIdentifier = "Cell"

class HashtagView: UICollectionViewController, UICollectionViewDelegateFlowLayout {

    var hashtagArray: [String] = []

    var categoriesArray = [Hashtag]()

    var fashionArray = [Hashtag]()
    var isFashionSelected: Bool = false
    var fashionArrayCount: [Int] = []

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        self.navigationController?.navigationBar.tintColor = .white
        navigationItem.title = "Hashtag"

        self.collectionView?.backgroundColor = .white
        self.collectionView?.register(HashtagCell.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier)
        self.collectionView?.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(10, 0, 0, 0)

        handleFetchCategories()
        handleFetchFashionHashtags()
    }

    func insertCategoryAtIndexPath(element: [Hashtag], index: Int) {
        categoriesArray.insert(contentsOf: element, at: index)
    }

    override func collectionView(_ collectionView: UICollectionView, didSelectItemAt indexPath: IndexPath) {

        let cell = self.collectionView?.cellForItem(at: indexPath) as! HashtagCell

        let hashtag = categoriesArray[indexPath.item]

        if hashtag.hashtag_name == "FASHION" && isFashionSelected == false {

            self.isFashionSelected = true

            self.insertCategoryAtIndexPath(element: self.fashionArray, index: indexPath.item + 1)
            self.collectionView?.reloadData()

        } else if hashtag.hashtag_name == "FASHION" && isFashionSelected == true {

            self.isFashionSelected = false

            self.categoriesArray.remove(at: self.fashionArrayCount)
            self.collectionView?.reloadData()

        }

        if hashtag.hashtag_name != "FASHION" && hashtag.hashtag_name != "FOOD" && hashtag.hashtag_name != "HOBBIES" && hashtag.hashtag_name != "MUSIC" {
            if cell.isCellSelected == false {
                cell.isCellSelected = true

                if self.hashtagArray.contains(hashtag.hashtag_name!) {
                    cell.backgroundColor = .white
                    cell.hashtagLabel.textColor = greenColor
                    cell.layer.borderColor = greenColor.cgColor
                } else {
                    self.hashtagArray.append(hashtag.hashtag_name!)
                }

                cell.backgroundColor = .white
                cell.hashtagLabel.textColor = greenColor
                cell.layer.borderColor = greenColor.cgColor

            } else if cell.isCellSelected == true {
                cell.isCellSelected = false

                // REMOVE UNSELECTED CELL FROM ARRAY.

                cell.backgroundColor = greenColor
                cell.hashtagLabel.textColor = .white
                cell.layer.borderColor = greenColor.cgColor
            }
        }

    }

Answer 1

You can use the index(of: ) method on the array to get the index

if let index = hashtagArray.index(of: "SOMESTRING") {
    hashtagArray.remove(at: index)
}