I've got a number of user properties in a user viewcontroller class ie
//user vars
var email: String?
var givenName: String?
var familyName:String?
var phone: String?
var dob: NSDate?
In a method within that class i retrieve user data from coredata and set the user text fields with that data in a loop
for i in 0 ..< userTextFields.count {
let field = userTextFields[i]
let fieldName = userTextFieldKeyNames[i]
let fieldText = currentUser.valueForKey(fieldName) as? String
field.text = fieldText
}
the fieldName variable in the loop matches the class's ivars above. Is there a way i can reference the ivars within the loop by matching it with the fieldName string so I can set the values of the ivars with the fetched coredata values ie in a literal sense saying something like the following ...
if self.property.name.text == fieldName {
self.property.value == fieldText
}
ie somehow resolving the various property names withing the class ... or is this bad design? .... if so any suggestions on achieving the same result in a better way
Not Swift-ish, as it's bypassing compile time type checking. Best option is to keep them all in a dictionary, and use a protocol to define allowed data types in the dictionary, but even that is rather poor
Related
I have a swift array of struct and I am unable edit the first property, whereas I am able edit the first property with an array of class.
In order to edit the first object of the struct array, I have to do [0] then .first
I know structs are valued by type, class are value by reference. But I don't understand the different behavior. Can someone explain?
class PersonObj {
var name = "Dheearj"
}
struct Person {
var name = "Dheearj"
mutating func update(name: String){
self.name = name
}
}
var array = [Person(),Person()]
array[0].update(name:"dheeraj")
array[0].name = "yuuu"
array.first?.name = "dddddd" <--- "Error Here"
var array1 = [PersonObj(),PersonObj()]
array1.first!.name = "ttt"
print(array1.first?.name ?? "")
print(array.first?.name ?? "")
print(array.count)
Screenshot of the error message:
Mutating a struct stored within some other property behaves as though you've copied out the value, modified it, and overwrote it back into place.
Take this line for example: (I replaced the optional chaining with force unwrapping, for simplicity)
array.first!.name = "dddddd"
It behaves as though you did:
var tmp = array.first!
tmp.name = "dddddd"
array.first = tmp
It's easy to see what that doesn't work. Array.first, is a get-only property (it doesn't have a setter).
The case for classses works because the value stored in the array is a reference to the object, and the reference isn't changing (only the values within the object it refers to, which the array doesn't know or care about).
I am new to realm and iOS development so I apologize in advance if something isn’t explained properly or is just incorrect.
I have 2 Realm Object classes:
class Category: Object {
#objc dynamic var name: String = ""
#objc dynamic var color: String = ""
let trackers = List<Tracker>()
}
and
class Tracker: Object {
#objc dynamic var timeSegment: Int = 0
var parentCategory = LinkingObjects(fromType: Category.self, property:
"trackers")
}
I’m able to store new timeSegment properties consistently; however, the issue is that I cannot retrieve & display a collection of timeSegment values relating to their parentCategory. setting
var entries : Results<Tracker>?
produces all results for every category, which is the only result i'm able to pull so far after testing.
Any help is appreciated, and can follow up with any additional details. Thanks
You need to call objects on your Realm object with a filter for fetching only results that match a predicate. The realm object in this code is an instance of the Realm class.
func getTrackersWithName(_ name: String) -> Results<Tracker> {
return realm.objects(Tracker.self).filter("name = \"\(name)\"")
}
This tells Realm to fetch all objects that match the filter predicate. In this case, the filter predicate matches any object where the value of the "name" property matches the string that is passed into the method.
Sorry if the title is rather confusing, but I'm curious to know the difference between these two lines:
var title = String()
var title: String
Is one being initialized and one only be declared? Which is more correct?
For example, if I have a struct should I use one of the other?
So the reason I ask this is because I'm learning about how to grab some JSON from a url and then display it in my app. One of the new ways of doing so is using Decodable. So, I have a struct in a model class like so:
struct Videos: Decodable {
var title = String()
var number_of_views : Int
var thumbnail_image_name: String
var channel: Channel
var duration: Int
}
In another class I have this:
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url){(data,response,error) in
if(error != nil){
print(error!)
return
}
guard let data = data else { return }
do{
self.Videos2 = try JSONDecoder().decode([Videos].self, from: data)
//self.collectionView?.reloadData()
}catch let jsonErr{
print(jsonErr)
}
}.resume()
So, should I declare or initialize the variables in my struct? I'm assuming I should just declare them like so:
var title: String?
Would that be the correct syntax in my struct?
UPDATE:
I understand this question was more broad then I originally proposed it to be. I'm sorry about that, but thank you so much for all your great answers that clarified a lot up for me.
The difference is that : defines the type of your variable, whereas = assigns an actual value to the variable.
So:
var title = String()
This calls the initializer of the String type, creating a new String instance. It then assigns this value to title. The type of title is inferred to be String because you're assigning an object of type String to it; however, you could also write this line explicitly as:
var title: String = String()
This would mean you are declaring a title variable of type String, and assigning a new String to it.
var title: String
This simply says you're defining a variable of type String. However, you are not assigning a value to it. You will need to assign something to this variable before you use it, or you will get a compile error (and if this is a property rather than just a variable, you'll need to assign it before you get to the end of your type's init() method, unless it's optional with ? after it, in which case it gets implicitly initialized to nil).
EDIT: For your example, I'd probably declare all the variables using let and :, assuming that your JSON provides values for all of those properties. The initializer generated by Decodable should then set all the properties when you create the object. So, something like:
struct Videos: Decodable {
let title: String
let number_of_views : Int
let thumbnail_image_name: String
let channel: Int
let duration: Int
}
This initializes a value
var title = String()
This declares a value but does not initialize it
var title: String
If you attempt to use the latter, such as print(title), you will get a compiler error stating Variable 'title' used before being initialized
It does not matter whether the value is a class or a struct.
The = operator is the assignment operator, it assigns a value to the object on the left of the =
Typically, class or struct properties are declared but not initialized until the init() is called. A simple class might be
class MyClass {
let myProperty: String
init(aString: String) {
self.myProperty = aString
}
}
Whereas inside the scope of a function you may declare a local variable that only lives inside the scope of the function.
func doSomethingToAString(aString: String) -> String {
let extraString = "Something"
let amendedString = aString + extraString
return amendedString
}
In your specific example, the struct synthesizes an initializer that will allow you to initialize the struct with all the values needed to fill your properties. The initializer generated by Decodable should then set all the properties when you create a Videos struct, you will do it something like:
let aVideos = Videos(title: "My Title", number_of_views: 0, thumbnail_image_name: "ImageName", channel: Channel(), duration: 10)
Is one being initialized and one only be declared?
Yes, meaning that the declared cannot be used. If you tried to set a value for it, you would get a compile-time error:
variable 'title' passed by reference before being initialized
Which is more correct?
There is no rule of thumb to determine which is more correct, that would be depends on is there a need to initialize title directly.
On another hand, when it comes to declare properties for a class, saying var title = String() means that you are give title an initial value ("") which means that you are able to create an instance of this class directly, example:
class Foo {
var title = String()
}
let myFoo = Foo()
However, if title declared as var title: String, you will have to implement the init for Foo:
class Foo {
var title: String
init(title: String) {
self.title = title
}
}
let myFoo = Foo(title: "")
Also, you have an option to declare it as lazy:
lazy var title = String()
which means:
A lazy stored property is a property whose initial value is not
calculated until the first time it is used. You indicate a lazy stored
property by writing the lazy modifier before its declaration.
Properties - Lazy Stored Properties
I've been learning iOS development for the past three weeks, I'm currently following a course on Udemy so far so good.
However I'm following one of the lectures whereby we build an Instagram Clone.
The instructor is using three arrays which are as follows:
var usernames = [""] // Stores all usernames
var userIds = [""] // Stores all Id's of the given usernames
var isFollowing = [false] // Stores where or not you're following that user
To me trying to keep track of what userId goes with what username using two arrays is basically an accident waiting to happen so I decided to set off and find a more feasible approach. I reverted back to my .Net days and decided to create a list so I went and created a class as follows:
class Users{
var Username : NSString = ""
var UserId : NSString = ""
var Following : Bool = false
}
Now inside my ViewController I make a call to Parse which returns me a list of users and I'm basically trying to loop through the response, and add them to the list class as shown here:
var t = [Users]() // After googling the web, this seems to be the syntax for a list declaration ?
let u = Users()
for object in users{
if let o = object as? PFUser {
u.Username = o.username!
u.UserId = o.objectId!
u.Following = o.IsFollowing!
self.t.append(u)
}
}
print(self.t)
Now when I print this to the console I see the following:
ParseStarterProject_Swift.Users
As I have one user at present, however when I try to loop through T and display the username in the console it doesn't display anything.
for x in t {
print(x.Username)
}
Your basic intuition is correct, it's better to have an array of custom objects, not multiple arrays.
Regarding making it more Swifty, consider your Users type. You might want something like:
struct User {
let username: String
let userId: String
let following: Bool
}
Note,
property names should start with lowercase letter;
Users should probably be called User, as it represents a single user;
we don't generally initialize values to default values like that, but rather specify them in the initializer;
we probably use String not NSString;
if a property cannot change, you'd use let, not var;
properties begin with lower case letters;
Then you can do something like:
var t = [User]()
for object in users {
if let o = object as? PFUser {
t.append(User(username: o.username!, userId: o.objectId!, following: o.IsFollowing!)
}
}
print(t)
Clearly, with all of those ! forced unwrapping operators, you'd want to be confident that those fields were populated for all of those properties.
Using struct is nice because (a) it's a value type; (b) you get the initializer for free; and (c) you can just print them. If you really wanted User to be a reference type (a class), you'd do something like:
class User {
let username: String
let userId: String
let following: Bool
init(username: String, userId: String, following: Bool) {
self.username = username
self.userId = userId
self.following = following
}
}
And if you wanted to be able to just print them, you'd define it to conform to CustomStringConvertible:
extension User: CustomStringConvertible {
var description: String { return "<User; username = \(username); userId = \(userId); following = \(following)>" }
}
With the class, you can feel free to change that description computed property to show it in whatever format you want, but it illustrates the idea.
You are correct in considering that keeping track of what userId goes with what username using two arrays is dangerous, you in the correct direction with your approach.
First, I would just like to suggest that you use correct naming convention:
Classes should be singular (except in very specific cases).
Variable/property names should begin with lowercase.
This would mean that your user class should look like this:
class User {
var username : NSString = ""
var userId : NSString = ""
var following : Bool = false
}
I will keep your existing naming use for the next part. The main problem with your code is that the variable "u" is a object which you create only once and then modify it. You should be creating a new "Users" object for each user instead of modifying the original. If you don't do this you will just have an array with the same user multiple times. This is how your code would look now:
var t = [Users]()
for object in users {
if let o = object as? PFUser {
let u = Users()
u.Username = o.username!
u.UserId = o.objectId!
u.Following = o.IsFollowing!
self.t.append(u)
}
}
print(self.t)
Next you mention that when you print to console you see the text: ParseStarterProject_Swift.Users, that is because Swift does not automatically print a pretty text with the content of your object. In order for it to print something more detailed, your "Users" object would need to implement the CustomStringConvertible. You can see a more detailed answer about that here: how-can-i-change-the-textual-representation-displayed-for-a-type-in-swif.
Lastly, you mention that when you loop trough "t" and display the username in the console it does not display anything. This is caused by one of two things:
Because there are no users being returned from parse, so the "t" array is actually empty. Try print(t.count) to see how many objects are in the array.
Because your "Users" object declares an empty string "" as the default username and the username is not being set correctly when getting the data from the parse. Which means that it IS actually printing something, just that it is an empty string. Try defining a different default value like var username : NSString = "Undefined" to see if it prints something.
Good luck learning swift!
I have this object class
class City {
var name:String
init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}
var video:String?
var description:String?
var image_array:NSArray?
}
in this class there is a property called image_array, and I want to assign it an NSArray as you can read.
But in this case I have to pass at this property a String that I should transform into an array
example:
The string is "img1.jpg,img2.jpg,img3.jpg"
then I use
let fullNameArray = fullName.componentsSeparatedByString(",")
and I obtain an NSArray
So what's the way to pass this String to the setter for image_array inside City object?
Then inside the setter to transform it into an array... I hope that it's clear.
You wouldn't, you need to either 1. transform it into an array and then pass it, or 2. add a different method which takes a string, transforms it and then calls the array setter.
Option 1. is better as it maintains a sane interface and doesn't pollute the class interface with crud from other classes.
If you really want to do it this way in order to write string from array use
var myString:String = array.description.stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet(NSCharacterSet(charactersInString: "[]"))
and to get array back from string
var array:[String] = myString.componentsSeparatedByString(", ") //dont forget space character