Protocol conforming to Equatable for Diffing - ios

Question

I have a small chat app here.
I can have 2 types of messages:
- text
- video
I am using polymorphism while decoding the JSON like so:
import Foundation
enum MessageType: Int, Decodable {
case text
case video
}
protocol Message: Decodable {
static var type: MessageType { get }
var id: String { get }
var user: User { get}
var timestamp: String { get }
}
struct TextMessage: Message {
static var type: MessageType = .text
var id: String
var user: User
var timestamp: String
let text: String
}
struct VideoMessage: Message {
static var type: MessageType = .video
var id: String
var user: User
var timestamp: String
let text: String
let link: String
let poster: String
}
enum MessageWrapper: Decodable {
enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
case type
}
case text(TextMessage)
case video(VideoMessage)
var item: Message {
switch self {
case .text(let item): return item
case .video(let item): return item
}
}
init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
let type = try values.decode(Int.self, forKey: .type)
switch type {
case MessageType.text.rawValue: self = .text(try TextMessage(from: decoder))
case MessageType.video.rawValue: self = .video(try VideoMessage(from: decoder))
default:
throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(forKey: .type,
in: values,
debugDescription: "Invalid type")
}
}
}
I am also using the MVVM approach like so:
struct ChatViewModel {
enum ViewModelType {
case loading
case text(TextMessageViewModel)
case video(VideoMessageViewModel)
case failure(ErrorViewModel)
}
enum State {
case initialized
case loading
case loaded([Message])
case failed(Error)
}
let state: State
let viewModels: [ViewModelType]
init(with state: State) {
self.state = state
switch state {
case .initialized:
viewModels = []
case .loading:
viewModels = [
.loading,
]
......
}
}
In order to be able to use a Diffing library like Differ, the ChatViewModel should conform to the Equatable protocol.
extension ChatViewModel: Equatable {
static func == (lhs: ChatViewModel, rhs: ChatViewModel) -> Bool {
return lhs.state == rhs.state
}
}
extension ChatViewModel.State: Equatable {
static func == (lhs: ChatViewModel.State, rhs: ChatViewModel.State) -> Bool {
switch (lhs, rhs) {
case (.initialized, .initialized): return true
case (.loading, .loading): return true
case let (.loaded(l), .loaded(r)): return l == r
case let (.failed(l), .failed(r)): return l.localizedDescription == r.localizedDescription
default: return false
}
}
}
The problem here is for the case let (.loaded(l), .loaded(r)): return l == r, Message, as a protocol, doesn't conform to Equatable.
Making it conform to Equatable like
protocol Message: Decodable, Equatable {
static var type: MessageType { get }
var id: String { get }
var user: User { get}
var timestamp: String { get }
}
produce an error Protocol 'Message' can only be used as a generic constraint because it has Self or associated type requirements for the MessageWrapper:
enum MessageWrapper: Decodable {
...
var item: Message { // Protocol 'Message' can only be used as a generic constraint because it has Self or associated type requirements
switch self {
case .text(let item): return item
case .video(let item): return item
}
}
...
}
Any idea or suggestion to have a clean way to solve this? I saw some post about Type Erasure but after some tests I am not sure that it is actually solving the problem.

Answer 1

You don't have to conform to Equatable in order to be able to use the == operator. You can just define an operator like that yourself, without conforming to Equatable.
For convenience's sake, I'll assume that TextMessage and VideoMessage already conforms to Equatable.
First, write a method that compares Messages:
func messageEqual(m1: Message, m2: Message) -> Bool {
if let textMessage1 = m1 as? TextMessage, let textMessage2 = m2 as? TextMessage {
return textMessage1 == textMessage2
}
if let videoMessage1 = m1 as? VideoMessage, let videoMessage2 = m2 as? VideoMessage {
return videoMessage1 == videoMessage2
}
return false
}
Then a the == operator for [Message]:
func ==(messages1: [Message], messages2: [Message]) -> Bool {
return messages1.count == messages2.count &&
zip(messages1, messages2).allSatisfy(messageEqual)
}
Now l == r should compile.