Shallows: a generic abstraction layer over lightweight data storage and persistence

by iOS Example

Shallows


Shallows is a generic abstraction layer over lightweight data storage and persistence. It provides a Storage<Key, Value> type, instances of which can be easily transformed and composed with each other. It gives you an ability to create highly sophisticated, effective and reliable caching/persistence solutions.

Shallows is deeply inspired by Carlos and this amazing talk by Brandon Kase.

Shallows is a really small, component-based project, so if you need even more controllable solution – build one yourself! Our source code is there to help.

Usage

struct City : Codable {
    let name: String
    let foundationYear: Int
}

let diskStorage = DiskStorage.main.folder("cities", in: .cachesDirectory)
    .mapJSONObject(City.self) // Storage<Filename, City>

let kharkiv = City(name: "Kharkiv", foundationYear: 1654)
diskStorage.set(kharkiv, forKey: "kharkiv")

diskStorage.retrieve(forKey: "kharkiv") { (result) in
    if let city = try? result.get() { print(city) }
}

Guide

A main type of Shallows is Storage<Key, Value>. It's an abstract, type-erased structure which doesn't contain any logic -- it needs to be provided with one. The most basic one is MemoryStorage:

let storage = MemoryStorage<String, Int>().asStorage() // Storage<String, Int>

Storage instances have retrieve and set methods, which are asynhronous and fallible:

storage.retrieve(forKey: "some-key") { (result) in
    switch result {
    case .success(let value):
        print(value)
    case .failure(let error):
        print(error)
    }
}
storage.set(10, forKey: "some-key") { (result) in
    switch result {
    case .success:
        print("Value set!")
    case .failure(let error):
        print(error)
    }
}

Transforms

Keys and values can be mapped:

let storage = DiskStorage.main.folder("images", in: .cachesDirectory) // Storage<Filename, Data>
let images = storage
    .mapValues(to: UIImage.self,
               transformIn: { data in try UIImage.init(data: data).unwrap() },
               transformOut: { image in try UIImagePNGRepresentation(image).unwrap() }) // Storage<Filename, UIImage>

enum ImageKeys : String {
    case kitten, puppy, fish
}

let keyedImages = images
    .usingStringKeys()
    .mapKeys(toRawRepresentableType: ImageKeys.self) // Storage<ImageKeys, UIImage>

keyedImages.retrieve(forKey: .kitten, completion: { result in /* .. */ })

NOTE: There are several convenience methods defined on Storage with value of Data: .mapString(withEncoding:), .mapJSON(), .mapJSONDictionary(), .mapJSONObject(_:) .mapPlist(format:), .mapPlistDictionary(format:), .mapPlistObject(_:).

Storages composition

Another core concept of Shallows is composition. Hitting a disk every time you request an image can be slow and inefficient. Instead, you can compose MemoryStorage and FileSystemStorage:

let efficient = MemoryStorage<Filename, UIImage>().combined(with: imageStorage)

It does several things:

  1. When trying to retrieve an image, the memory storage first will be checked first, and if it doesn't contain a value, the request will be made to disk storage.
  2. If disk storage stores a value, it will be pulled to memory storage and returned to a user.
  3. When setting an image, it will be set both to memory and disk storage.

Read-only storage

If you don't want to expose writing to your storage, you can make it a read-only storage:

let readOnly = storage.asReadOnlyStorage() // ReadOnlyStorage<Key, Value>

Read-only storages can also be mapped and composed:

let immutableFileStorage = DiskStorage.main.folder("immutable", in: .applicationSupportDirectory)
    .mapString(withEncoding: .utf8)
    .asReadOnlyStorage()
let storage = MemoryStorage<Filename, String>()
    .backed(by: immutableFileStorage)
    .asReadOnlyStorage() // ReadOnlyStorage<Filename, String>

Write-only storage

In similar way, write-only storage is also available:

let writeOnly = storage.asWriteOnlyStorage() // WriteOnlyStorage<Key, Value>

Different ways of composition

Compositions available for Storage:

  • .combined(with:) (see Storages composition)
  • .backed(by:) will work the same as combined(with:), but it will not push the value to the back storage
  • .pushing(to:) will not retrieve the value from the back storage, but will push to it on set

Compositions available for ReadOnlyStorage:

  • .backed(by:)

Compositions available for WriteOnlyStorage:

  • .pushing(to:)

Single element storage

You can have a storage with keys Void. That means that you can store only one element there. Shallows provides a convenience .singleKey method to create it:

let settings = DiskStorage.main.folder("settings", in: .applicationSupportDirectory)
    .mapJSONDictionary()
    .singleKey("settings") // Storage<Void, [String : Any]>
settings.retrieve { (result) in
    // ...
}

Synchronous storage

Storages in Shallows are asynchronous by design. However, in some situations (for example, when scripting or testing) it could be useful to have synchronous storages. You can make any storage synchronous by calling .makeSyncStorage() on it:

let strings = DiskStorage.main.folder("strings", in: .cachesDirectory)
    .mapString(withEncoding: .utf8)
    .makeSyncStorage() // SyncStorage<Filename, String>
let existing = try strings.retrieve(forKey: "hello")
try strings.set(existing.uppercased(), forKey: "hello")

Mutating value for key

Shallows provides a convenient .update method on storages:

let arrays = MemoryStorage<String, [Int]>()
arrays.update(forKey: "some-key", { $0.append(10) })

Zipping storages

Zipping is a very powerful feature of Shallows. It allows you to compose your storages in a way that you get result only when both of them completes for your request. For example:

let strings = MemoryStorage<String, String>()
let numbers = MemoryStorage<String, Int>()
let zipped = zip(strings, numbers) // Storage<String, (String, Int)>
zipped.retrieve(forKey: "some-key") { (result) in
    if let (string, number) = try? result.get() {
        print(string)
        print(number)
    }
}
zipped.set(("shallows", 3), forKey: "another-key")

Isn't it nice?

Recovering from errors

You can protect your storage instance from failures using fallback(with:) or defaulting(to:) methods:

let storage = MemoryStorage<String, Int>()
let protected = storage.fallback(with: { error in
    switch error {
    case MemoryStorageError.noValue:
        return 15
    default:
        return -1
    }
})

let storage = MemoryStorage<String, Int>()
let defaulted = storage.defaulting(to: -1)

This is especially useful when using update method:

let storage = MemoryStorage<String, [Int]>()
storage.defaulting(to: []).update(forKey: "first", { $0.append(10) })

That means that in case of failure retrieving existing value, update will use default value of [] instead of just failing the whole update.

Using NSCacheStorage

NSCache is a tricky class: it supports only reference types, so you're forced to use, for example, NSData instead of Data and so on. To help you out, Shallows provides a set of convenience extensions for legacy Foundation types:

let nscache = NSCacheStorage<NSURL, NSData>()
    .toNonObjCKeys()
    .toNonObjCValues() // Storage<URL, Data>

Making your own storage

To create your own caching layer, you should conform to StorageProtocol. That means that you should define these two methods:

func retrieve(forKey key: Key, completion: @escaping (Result<Value, Error>) -> ())
func set(_ value: Value, forKey key: Key, completion: @escaping (Result<Void, Error>) -> ())

Where Key and Value are associated types.

NOTE: Please be aware that you are responsible for the thread-safety of your implementation. Very often retrieve and set will not be called from the main thread, so you should make sure that no race conditions will occur.

To use it as Storage<Key, Value> instance, simply call .asStorage() on it:

let storage = MyStorage().asStorage()

You can also conform to a ReadOnlyStorageProtocol only. That way, you only need to define a retrieve(forKey:completion:) method.

Installation

Swift Package Manager

Starting with Xcode 11, Shallows is officially available only via Swift Package Manager.

In Xcode 11 or greater, in you project, select: File > Swift Packages > Add Pacakage Dependency

In the search bar type

https://github.com/dreymonde/Shallows

Then proceed with installation.

If you can't find anything in the panel of the Swift Packages you probably haven't added yet your github account.
You can do that under the Preferences panel of your Xcode, in the Accounts section.

For command-line based apps, you can just add this directly to your Package.swift file:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/dreymonde/Shallows", from: "0.11.0"),
]

Manual

Of course, you always have an option of just copying-and-pasting the code.

Deprecated dependency managers

Last Shallows version to support Carthage and Cocoapods is 0.10.0. Carthage and Cocoapods will no longer be officially supported.

Carthage:

github "dreymonde/Shallows" ~> 0.10.0

Cocoapods:

pod 'Shallows', '~> 0.10.0'

GitHub

https://github.com/dreymonde/Shallows