Async update in MVVM and animation on state change - ios

Question

I trying to understand how Combine and SwiftUI works in combination with MVVM and clean architecture, but I encountered a problem with using withAnimation once my view model has an async method that updated published value. I was able to solve it, but I'm pretty sure it's not the correct way and I'm missing something fundamental. Here it is how it looks my solution, starting with my data manager:
protocol NameManaging {
var publisher: AnyPublisher<[Name], Never> { get }
func fetchNames() async
}
class MockNameManager: NameManaging {
var publisher: AnyPublisher<[Name], Never> {
names.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
func fetchNames() async {
var values = await heavyAsyncTask()
names.value.append(contentsOf: values)
}
private func heavyAsyncTask() async -> [Name] {
// do some heavy async task
}
private var names = CurrentValueSubject<[Name], Never>([])
}
Then view models:
class NameListViewModel: ObservableObject {
#Published var names = [Name]()
private var anyCancellable: AnyCancellable?
private var nameManager: NameManaging
init(nameManager: NameManaging = MockNameManager()) {
self.nameManager = nameManager
self.anyCancellable = nameManager.publisher
.receive(on: DispatchQueue.main)
.sink(receiveValue: { [weak self] values in
withAnimation {
self?.names = values
}
})
}
func fetchNames() async {
await nameManager.fetchNames()
}
}
Lastly my view:
struct NameList: View {
#StateObject private var nameListViewModel = NameListViewModel()
var body: some View {
VStack {
VStack {
HStack {
Button(action: updateNames) {
Text("Fetch some more names")
}
}
}
.padding()
List {
ForEach(nameListViewModel.names) {
NameRow(name: $0)
}
}
}
.navigationTitle("Names list")
.onAppear(perform: updateNames)
}
func updateNames() {
Task {
await nameListViewModel.fetchNames()
}
}
}
What I did is use withAnimation inside my view model in .sink() method of data manager publisher. This works as expected, but it indroduce view function inside view model. How can I do it in a way that inside updateNames in my view I'll use withAnimation? Or maybe I should do it in completely different way?

Answer 1

You are mixing up technologies. The point of async/await is to remove the need for a state object (i.e. a reference type) and Combine to do async work. You can simply use the .task modifier to call any async func and set the result on an #State var. If the async func throws then you might catch the exception and set a message on another #State var. The great thing about .task is it's called when the UIView (that SwiftUI creates for you) appears and cancelled when it disappears (also if the optional id param changes). So no need for an object, which often is the cause of consistency/memory problems which Swift and SwiftUI's use of value types is designed to eliminate.
struct NameList: View {
#State var var names: [Name] = []
#State var fetchCount = 0
var body: some View {
VStack {
VStack {
HStack {
Button("Fetch some more names") {
fetchCount += 1
}
}
}
.padding()
List {
ForEach(names) { name in
NameRow(name: name)
}
}
}
.navigationTitle("Names list")
.task(id: fetchCount) {
let names = await Name.fetchNames()
withAnimation {
self.names = names
}
}
}
}