SwiftUI Struct for Dictionary entry - ios

Question

I have decided after several years of development to restart my project using SwiftUI to future proof as much as I can.
In my current project I have my data in several .CSV's which I then process into dictionaries and then create a list of entries on screen using an Array of keys which are generated programmatically from user input.
All examples I've seen for SwiftUI use JSON. However the structure of these files are identical to an Array of Dictionaries. My question is; is it possible to create a Struct of a dictionary entry to pass in a forEach watching an Array of Keys (data inside the dictionary will never change and I am not looking to iterate or watch the dictionary).
My main goal is to reuse as much as possible but am willing to change what I have to get full benefit of SwiftUI. Obviously if I change the way I store my data almost everything will be useless. If there's a real benefit to converting my data to JSON or even start using something like CoreData I will.

Answer 1

If I'm understanding correctly, you are looking to
Take some user input
Transform that into keys that correspond to your data dictionary
Extract the data for the matching keys into some struct
Display a list of those structs using SwiftUI
Here is a simple implementation of those steps.
import SwiftUI
// A dictionary containing your data
let data: [String: Int] = [
"apples": 5,
"bananas": 3,
"cherries": 12
]
// A struct representing a match from your data
struct Item {
var name: String
var quantity: Int
}
// A view that displays the contents of your struct
struct RowView: View {
var item: Item
var body: some View {
Text("\(item.quantity) \(item.name)")
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
#State private var searchText: String = ""
func items(matching search: String) -> [Item] {
// 2 - split the user input into individual keys
let split = search.split(separator: " ", omittingEmptySubsequences: true).map { $0.lowercased() }
// 3 - turn any matching keys/values in your dictionary to a view model
return split.compactMap { name in
guard let quantity = data[name] else { return nil }
return Item(name: name, quantity: quantity)
}
}
var body: some View {
VStack {
// 1 - get user input
TextField("Search", text: $searchText)
.padding()
// 4 - display the matching values using ForEach (note that the id: \.name is important)
List {
ForEach(items(matching: searchText), id: \.name) { item in
RowView(item: item)
}
}
}
}
}
You'll see that as you type in the text field, if you enter any of the strings "apples", "bananas", or "cherries", a corresponding row will pop into your list.
Depending on the size of your list, and what kind of validation you are performing on your users search queries, you might need to be a little more careful about doing the filtering/searching in an efficient way (e.g. using Combine to only split and search after the user stops typing).