Nested hierarchy view (for comment system) [closed] - ios

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I'd like to implement a commenting system where users can reply to others who've left comments. I'd like to display these comments in a nested hierarchy view, similar to what the reddit app "Apollo" does below:
https://i.imgur.com/JiLLsjs.mp4
As you can see, the comments are sorted in a nested format.
Here is what my API response looks like:
{
"success": true,
"data": {
"comments": {
"data": [
{
"id": 1,
"parent_id": 0,
"depth": 0,
"message": "1",
"children_count": 2,
"children": [
{
"id": 2,
"parent_id": 1,
"depth": 1,
"message": "2",
"children_count": 1,
"children": [
{
"id": 3,
"parent_id": 2,
"depth": 2,
"message": "3",
"children_count": 0,
"children": []
}
]
},
{
"id": 4,
"parent_id": 1,
"depth": 1,
"message": "2",
"children_count": 0,
"children": []
}
]
},
{
"id": 5,
"parent_id": 0,
"depth": 0,
"message": "1",
"children_count": 0,
"children": []
}
]
}
}
}
As you can see, each comment object has a parent_id (the parent comment ID), a depth (basically the "level" of the comment in the hierarchy), a children_count (the number of direct children), and children (the children comments themselves).
So with that, my questions are:
How would this best be implemented? As a table view, collection view, or something else? I assume I would create a xib for the comment view itself?
What is the best way to approach actually implementing this? How should I loop through the API response?
How do I add a margin/padding to the left side to make a comment look nested?
How do I make the cells expandable?
What should I know about in terms of memory management?
Thanks.

Answer 1

1- Personally would go with a tableView
2- It's a recursive operation that ends with let children: [Datum]? being empty/nil like
// MARK: - Empty
struct Root: Codable {
let success: Bool
let data: DataClass
}
// MARK: - DataClass
struct DataClass: Codable {
let comments: Comments
}
// MARK: - Comments
struct Comments: Codable {
let data: [Datum]
}
// MARK: - Datum
struct Datum: Codable {
let id, parentID, depth: Int
let message: String
let childrenCount: Int
let children: [Datum]?
}
let decoder = JSONDecoder()
decoder.keyDecodingStrategy = .convertFromSnakeCase
let res = decoder.decode(Root.self, from:data)
3- You need to limit the number of replies to a comment , as there is no screen width will fit for un-known number of replies btw it's about nested tableView padding
4- You need to play with heightForRowAt or you'll have to do some calculations for the nested tables or better fixed height with more , also more easier is to show nested comments inside another separate vc and so like facebook
5- Simply don't nest multiple vcs over each other with a count more than 2/3 also using table cells are dequeued which is a good memory performance handled automatically by system