Easy and maintainable app navigation with path based routing for SwiftUI

SwiftUI Router

With SwiftUI Router you can power your SwiftUI app with path based routing. By utilizing a path based system, navigation in your app becomes more flexible and easier to maintain.

Installation ?

In Xcode add the dependency to your project via File > Swift Packages > Add Package Dependency... and use the following url:

https://github.com/frzi/SwiftUIRouter.git

Once added, import the package in your code:

import SwiftUIRouter

Bada bing bada boom you're ready to go.

Usage ?

Below a quick rundown of the available views and objects and their basic features. For further details, please check out the documentation in the Swift files.

Router

Router {
	RootView()
}

The entry of a routing environment. Wrap your entire app (or just the part that needs routing) inside a Router. This view will initialize all necessary environment values needed for routes.


Route

Route(path: "news/*") {
	NewsScreen()
}
Route(path: "settings") {
	SettingsScreen()
}
Route(path: "user/:id?") { info in
	UserScreen(id: info.parameters["id"])
}

A view that will only render its contents if its path matches that of the environment. Use /* to also match deeper paths. E.g.: the path news/* will match the following environment paths: /news, /news/latest, /news/article/1 etc.

Parameters

Paths can contain parameters (aka variables) that can be read individually. A parameter's name is prefixed with a colon (:). Additionally, a parameter can be considered optional by suffixing it with a question mark (?). The parameters are passed down as a [String : String] in an RouteInformation object to a Route's contents.

Parameter validation

func validateUserID(routeInfo: RouteInformation) -> UUID? {
	UUID(routeInfo.parameters["id"] ?? "")
}

Route(path: "user/:id", validator: validateUserID) { userID in
	UserScreen(userID: userID)
}

A Route provides an extra step for validating parameters in a path.

Let's say your Route has the path /user/:id. By default, the :id parameter can be anything. But in this case you only want valid UUIDs. Using a Route's validator argument, you're given a chance to validate (and transform) the parameter's value.

A validator is a simple function that's passed a RouteInformation object (containing the parameters) and returns the transformed value as an optional. The new transformed value is passed down to your view instead of the default RouteInformation object. If the transformed value is nil the Route will prevent rendering its contents.

NavLink(to: "/news/latest") {
	Text("Latest news")
}

A wrapper around a Button that will navigate to the given path if pressed.

SwitchRoutes

SwitchRoutes {
	Route(path: "latest") {
		LatestNewsScreen()
	}
	Route(path: "article/:id") { info in
		NewsArticleScreen(articleID: info.parameters["id"]!)
	}
	Route(path: ":unknown") {
		ErrorScreen()
	}
	Route {
		NewsScreen()
	}
}

A view that will only render the first Route whose path matches the environment path. This is useful if you wish to work with fallbacks. This view can give a slight performance boost as it prevents Routes from path matching once a previous Route's path is already resolved.

Navigate(to: "/error-404")

This view will automatically navigate to another path once rendered. One may consider using this view in a fallback Route inside a SwitchRoutes.


@EnvironmentObject var navigator: Navigator

An environment object containg the data of the Router. With this object you can programmatically navigate to another path, go back in the history stack or go forward.

RouteInformation

@EnvironmentObject var routeInformation: RouteInformation

A lightweight object containing information of the current Route. A RouteInformation contains the current path and a [String : String] with all the parsed parameters.

This object is passed down by default in a Route to its contents. It's also accessible as an environment object.