How to retrieve UseDefault saved data from another ViewController - ios

Question

I have 2 ViewControllers, one displays the UI and the 2nd one displays a segmented control used as a settings button. Im using the below code to save the segmented control state:
UserDefaults.standard.set(selectorLabel.selectedSegmentIndex, forKey: "stateSelected")
I then retrieve that usedefault on the viewdidload method:
if let value = UserDefaults.standard.value(forKey: "stateSelected"){
let selectedIndex = value as! Int
selectorLabel.selectedSegmentIndex = selectedIndex
}
So far this works as intended and the state of the segmented controlled is loaded properly each app load.
The segmented control has two text titles - one is "LBs & INs" and the second is "KGs & CMs".
How would I save those two segmented control text titles as UserDefaults and then call them on the first ViewController to set two labels on the viewdidload?

Answer 1

Define a model to represent data you want to store and restore:
struct SegmentedControlState: Codable {
let selectedIndex: Int
let titles: [String]
}
Initialize a model, encode and store it somewhere (like user default):
func saveState(of segmentedControl: UISegmentedControl) {
let state = SegmentedControlState(
selectedIndex: segmentedControl.selectedSegmentIndex,
titles: (0..<segmentedControl.numberOfSegments).map { segmentedControl.titleForSegment(at: $0) ?? ""})
let plist = try! PropertyListEncoder().encode(state)
UserDefaults.standard.set(plist, forKey: "SegmentedControlState")
//UserDefaults.standard.synchronize() //if targeting older iOS
}
for restoring, you should reverse the order like this:
func loadState(on segmentedControl: UISegmentedControl) {
guard let plist = UserDefaults.standard.value(forKey: "SegmentedControlState") as? Data else { return }
let state = try! PropertyListDecoder().decode(SegmentedControlState.self, from: plist)
for element in state.titles.enumerated() {
segmentedControl.setTitle(element.element, forSegmentAt: element.offset)
}
segmentedControl.selectedSegmentIndex = state.selectedIndex
}
usage:
// store `selectorLabel` data
saveState(of: selectorLabel)
// restore `selectorLabel` data
loadState(on: selectorLabel)
Note that it is not a good idea to store data like this to userdefaults at all. If you want to access some data from anywhere in code, you should follow singleton pattern and define your own singleton instance instead of standard userdefault.

Answer 2

Just store the value as a string, instead of an integer index.
UserDefaults.standard.set(selectorLabel.titleForSegment(at: selectorLabel.selectedSegmentIndex), forKey: "stateSelected")
And then to retrieve:
UserDefaults.standard.string(forKey: "stateSelected")
EDIT: #rmaddy is correct above - you should ideally be storing an index value like you're already doing, and then using an array to determine which title the index refers to (cleaner than just using a title as a reference). You could make this array global so you can access from anywhere, if you must.
segmentedControlTitles: [String] = ["LBs & INs", "KGs & CMs"]
And then call by
let index = UserDefaults.standard.integer(forKey: "stateSelected")
let title = segmentedControlTitles[index]