Powerful property wrapper to back codable properties

by iOS Example

BackedCodable

Powerful property wrapper to back codable properties.

Why

Swift’s Codable is a great language feature but easily becomes verbose and requires a lot of boilerplate as soon as your serialized files (JSON, Plist) differ from the model you actually want for your app.

BackedCodable offers a single property wrapper to annotate your properties in a declarative way, instead of the good old imperative init(from decoder: Decoder).

Other libraries solve Decodable issues using property wrappers as well, but IMO they are limited by the fact you can apply only one property wrapper per property. So for example, you have to choose between @LossyArray and @DefaultEmptyArray.

With this library, you’ll be able to write things like @Backed(Path("attributes", "dates"), options: .lossy, strategy: .secondsSince1970) to decode a lossy array of dates using a seconds since 1970 strategy at the key dates of the nested dictionary attributes.

Installation

BackedDecodable is installable using the Swift Package Manager or CocoaPods.

Usage

  • Mark all properties of your model with @Backed()
  • Make your model conform to BackedDecodable ; it just requires a init(_:DeferredDecoder)

Features

A single @Backed property wrapper provides you all the following features.

Custom decoding path:

@Backed() // key is inferred from property name: "firstName"
var firstName: String 

@Backed("first_name") // custom key 
var firstName: String

@Backed(Path("attributes", "first_name")) // key "first_name" nested in "attributes" dictionary 
var firstName: String

@Backed(Path("attributes", "first_name") ?? "first_name")  // will try "attributes.first_name" and if it fails "first_name" 
var firstName: String

A Path is composed of different PathComponent:

  • .key(String): also expressible by a String literal (Path("foo") == Path(.key("foo")))
  • .index(Int): also expressible by an Integer literal (Path("foo", 0) == Path(.key("foo"), .index(0)))
  • .allKeys: get all keys from a dictionary
  • .allValues: get all values from a dictionary
  • .keys(where: { key, value -> Bool }): filter elements of a dictionary and extract their keys
  • .values(where: { key, value -> Bool }): filter elements of a dictionary and extract their values

Lossy collections filter out invalid or null items and keep only what success. It’s a kind of .compactMap().

@Backed(options: .lossy) 
var items: [Item]

@Backed(options: .lossy) 
var tags: Set<String>

Default values for when a key is missing, value is null of value isn’t in the right format:

@Backed(defaultValue: .unknown) 
var itemType: ItemType

`@Backed() // defaultValue is automatically set to `nil` so decoding an optional never "fails" 
var name: String?

Custom date decoding strategy per property:

@Backed("start_date", strategy: .secondsFrom1970) 
var startDate: Date

@Backed("end_date", strategy: .millisecondsFrom1970) 
var endDate: Date

Custom decoder for when a single decoding strategy doesn’t stand out:

@Backed("foreground_color", decoder: .HSBAColor) 
var foregroundColor: UIColor

@Backed("background_color", decoder: .RGBAColor) 
var backgroundColor: UIColor

Extensions on Decoder to benefit some of the features above:

init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    self.id = try decoder.decoder(String.self, at: "uuid")`
    self.title = try decoder.decoder(String.self, at: Path("attributes", "title"))`
    self.tags = try decoder.decoder([String].self, at: Path("attributes", "tags"), options: .lossy)`
}

Example

Given the following JSON:

{
    "name": "Steve",
    "dates": [1613984296, "N/A", 1613984996],
    "values": [12, "34", 56, "78"],
    "attributes": {
        "values": ["12", 34, "56", 78],
        "all dates": {
            "start_date": 1613984296000,
            "end_date": 1613984996
        }
    },
    "counts": {
        "apples": 12,
        "oranges": 9,
        "bananas": 6
    },
    "foreground_color": {
        "hue": 255,
        "saturation": 128,
        "brightness": 128
    },
    "background_color": {
        "red": 255,
        "green": 128,
        "blue": 128
    },
    "birthdays": {
        "Steve Jobs": -468691200,
        "Tim Cook": -289238400
    }
}

All of this is possible:

public struct BackedStub: BackedDecodable, Equatable {
    public init(_:DeferredDecoder) {}

    @Backed()
    public var someString: String?

    @Backed()
    public var someArray: [String]?

    @Backed()
    public var someDate: Date?

    @Backed(strategy: .secondsSince1970)
    public var someDateSince1970: Date?

    @Backed("full_name" ?? "name" ?? "first_name")
    public var name: String

    @Backed(Path("attributes", "all dates", "start_date"), strategy: .deferredToDecoder)
    public var startDate: Date

    @Backed(Path("attributes", "all dates", "end_date"), strategy: .secondsSince1970)
    public var endDate: Date

    @Backed("dates", options: .lossy, strategy: .secondsSince1970)
    public var dates: [Date]

    @Backed("values", defaultValue: [], options: .lossy)
    public var values: [String]

    @Backed(Path("attributes", "values"), options: .lossy)
    public var nestedValues: [String]?

    @Backed(Path("attributes", "values", 1))
    public var nestedInteger: Int

    @Backed(Path("counts", .allKeys), options: .lossy)
    public var fruits: [Fruits]

    @Backed(Path("counts", .allValues))
    public var counts: [Int]

    @Backed(Path("counts", .allKeys, 0))
    public var bestFruit: String

    @Backed(Path("counts", .allValues, 2))
    public var lastCount: Int

    @Backed(Path("counts", .keys(where: hasSmallCount)))
    public var smallCountFruits: [String]

    @Backed(Path("counts", .keys(where: hasSmallCount), 0))
    public var firstSmallCountFruit: String

    @Backed("foreground_color", decoder: .HSBAColor)
    public var foregroundColor: Color

    @Backed("background_color", decoder: .RGBAColor)
    public var backgroundColor: Color

    @Backed(Path("birthdays", .allValues), strategy: .secondsSince1970)
    public var birthdays: [Date]

    @Backed(Path("birthdays", .allValues, 1), strategy: .secondsSince1970)
    public var timCookBirthday: Date
}

FAQ

How do I declare a memberwise initializer? 

struct User: BackedDecodable {
    init(_: DeferredDecoder) {} // required by BackedDecodable
    
    init(id: String, firstName: String, lastName: String) {
        self.$id = id
        self.$firstName = firstName
        self.$lastName = lastName
    }
    
    @Backed("uuid")
    var id: String

    @Backed(Path("attributes", "first_name"))
    var firstName: String
    
    @Backed(Path("attributes", "last_name"))
    var lastName: String
}
What happen if I forgot to set a `$property` in a custom .init(...)?

Unfortunately, unless the property is Optional, it will crash.
To avoid the crash, must be sure to set all self.$property in all your custom .init(...) like in the memberwise .init(...) example above.
This is a known limitation for which I don’t have any solution.

Do I need to have all my model backed by BackedDecodable?

No! Backed model works on their own and can be composed of plain Decodable properties.

What about performances?

I didn’t run any performance testing yet (it’s on the todo list ?) but as the library uses reflection and go through nested containers from the root Decoder for each properties, you might notice some performance issues. Feel free to open an issue with attached details if you do! ?

Wouldn’t it be better if all of these was part of Swift?

It would! I had to accept some performance and compile-time safety trade-offs to make this library (see above) that probably wouldn’t be needed if this was possible in plain Swift. But luckily, Swift is an incredible community driven language, and the core team initiated a discussion around this topic. Check it out: https://forums.swift.org/t/serialization-in-swift/46641

To-do

  • Performance testing
  • Encodable support
  • Mutable properties support
  • Data strategies

Thanks

Author

Jérôme Alves

License

BackedCodable is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.

GitHub

https://github.com/jegnux/BackedCodable