How to name UIImage drawn from UIBezierPath() programmatically in Xcode-Swift? - swift

Question

How do we name an image programmatically. For example, assign a name to the image generated below. A name that we can use to distinguish the image from other images drawn programmatically.
func drawOval (width: CGFloat, height: CGFloat, name: String) -> UIImage {
let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: CGSize(width: width, height: height))
let image = renderer.image { ctx in
let path = UIBezierPath(ovalIn: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: width, height: height))
path.stroke()
}
// TO DO: Assign this image a name, for example "image01"
return image
}

Answer 1

You can use tags on each UIImageView. I’m not aware of a way to add an identifier to a UIImage directly since it is a subclass of NSObject and not UIView. In order to add a tag to an object in Swift, the object must be a view of some kind.
To implement this, you would keep a variable outside of that function that keeps track of the current tag, then increment it in your function. For example:
var currentTag = 0
//Function now returns a UIImageView
func drawOval (width: CGFloat, height: CGFloat, name: String) -> UIImageView {
let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: CGSize(width: width, height: height))
let image = renderer.image { ctx in
let path = UIBezierPath(ovalIn: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: width, height: height))
path.stroke()
}
let imageView = UIImageView(image: image)
imageView.tag = currentTag
currentTag += 1
return imageView
}
Then later in your code:
if (imageView.tag == 0) {
//Do something
}
//You can also use
let taggedImageView = viewWithTag(0)
EDIT: If you want to save the images and load them via one of the available UIImage initializers, you can write them to a cache folder on disk, then retrieve them using UIImage(pathToFile:):
//This will store the images in the caches directory for your app, which
//the system can clear when the device is low on storage. It will not be
//cleared while your app is open, though.
func saveImageToCacheDynamically(image: UIImage, name: String) {
let paths = FileManager.default.urls(for: .cachesDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)
let localPath = paths[0].appendingPathComponent(“ImageCache”, isDirectory: true)
do {
if FileManager.default.fileExists(atPath: localPath.absoluteString) {
//Write the png data representation of the image to disk in plaintext format
try image.pngData().write(to: localPath.appendingPathComponent("\(name).txt"))
} else {
try FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: localPath, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil)
//Write the png data representation of the image to disk in plaintext format
try image.pngData().write(to: localPath.appendingPathComponent("\(name).txt"))
}
} catch {
print("Error locally saving image: \(error.localizedDescription)")
}
//Later in your code...
let paths = FileManager.default.urls(for: .cachesDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)
let localPath = paths[0].appendingPathComponent("ImageCache/\(imageIdentifier).txt")
if FileManager.default.fileExists(atPath: localPath.absoluteString) {
var fileData: Data!
do {
try fileData = Data(contentsOf: localPath)
} catch {
print("Error reading image file: \(error.localizedDescription)")
}
let image = UIImage(data: fileData)
//Do something with image
} else {
print("Error: image does not exist")
}

Answer 2

I believe what you are looking for is something like NSCache...
You can define a cache by something similar to this:
let imageCache = NSCache<String, UIImage>()
Then you can add objects to the cache like this, where someKeyString is the 'name' you are referring to:
imageCache.setObject(someImage, forKey: someKeyString)
And then finally you can retrieve images from the cache like
imageCache.object(forKey: someKeyString)
I would recommend using extensions or something similar to maintain a reference to your cache everywhere in your app.
** NOTE:
NSCaches are cleared when memory space is short, your app closes, etc. See here
For more permanent storage, I would recommend using UserDefaults, which Apple describes as "An interface to the user’s defaults database, where you store key-value pairs persistently across launches of your app." Use this for things like profile images or things that won't change very often. I would also recommend looking into Core Data