Binder in RxSwift which accepts optional Any - swift

I would like to create a Reactive extension to the UIButton which will take any object (value and reference type) and will enable the button based on the value. If it is nil I want to disable the button and enable if it there is value.
here is the code:
extension Reactive where Base: UIButton {
var isEnabledForModel: Binder<Any?> {
return Binder(base, binding: {
$0.isEnabled = $1 != nil
})
}
}
When I try to bind the observable which contains optional struct I get an error: Ambiguous reference to member 'bind(to: ). Is there any way to pass Any to the Binder or achieve it in different way? Maybe I want to make it too generic.

Yes, you are trying to make something that is too generic. For example, if you want the button disabled for a missing string, you probably also want it disabled for an empty string, but there is no way to express that in your binder.
That said, your code compiles fine for me. I suggest you clean your build folder and rebuild. Despite the fact that it compiles, the point of use becomes more complex than I think you would like.
let foo = Observable<Int?>.just(nil)
foo
.map { $0 as Any? }
.bind(to: button.rx.isEnabledForModel)
.disposed(by: bag)
Note that you have to manually map the Int? into a Any?. If you remove the map you will get an error "Generic parameter 'Self' could not be inferred". Because it's a generic parameter, the system won't look for possible matches through the inheritance tree and therefore won't accept the isEnabledForModel.

Related

Swift Dictionaries with enum as Identifier not auto completing in completion block

I have a function that returns a completion. The completion has as in parameter a custom class with a dictionary that uses an enum as an identifier.
The problem I am facing is that Xcode does not recognises the type of the variable and does not auto complete when I use it inside of completion block.
My code looks like that
Function
func testFunc (completion:(PrxServiceResponseCallback) ->()){
let responseCallback = PrxServiceResponseCallback()
completion(responseCallback)
}
Class
class PrxServiceResponseCallback:NSObject{
var success = false
var resultCode:Int32 = 0
var response:[PrxResponseAttributes:Any] = [PrxResponseAttributes:Any]()
}
enum PrxResponseAttributes{
case sourceProtocolInfoArray
case sinkProtocolInfoArray
case connectionIDsArray
case connectionInfo
}
Calling the function
testFunc { (testResonse) in
testResonse.response[.]//Not Auto completing
}
The whole idea of making a dictionary with an enum as identifier was to make easier which attributes the dictionary returns but, If I can't auto complete, the idea is more pointless.
Any ideas?
Xcode doesn't give you autocomplete doesn't mean that your code doesn't compile. It just means that Xcode is too stupid to figure things out. I have encountered such situations many times before. It seems to always happen inside closures.
You can just ignore the fact that no autocomplete shows up and type the case name yourself:
testResonse.response[.sourceProtocolInfoArray]
It will compile.
You can also consider creating a struct instead of storing the values in a dictionary. Here's a sample struct (I guessed the types):
struct Response {
let sourceProtocolInfo: [String]
let sinkProtocolInfo: [String]
let connectionIDs: [Int]
let connectionInfo: String
}
If you use var response:[UIColor:Any] = [UIColor:Any]()
it is still not giving auto complete so it is not your issue and you can not do much on it .
If you need auto complete then use PrxResponseAttributes with . (dot)
you can do it like
testResonse.response[PrxResponseAttributes.sourceProtocolInfoArray]
EDIT
Note: It is only happening with implemented closure if you add one property in your PrxServiceResponseCallback class like
var anyValue:Any? {
return response[.connectionInfo] // it is showing completion
}

RxSwift Two way binding with a BehaviorRelay<Any?>

I create a generic variable. This variable can be connected to a textField or an other interface element like a switch, for example. So the type of my variable will be Any so that I can store a bool, a string or something else.
var test: BehaviorRelay<Any?> = BehaviorRelay<Any?>(value: nil)
Then I try to connect my interface elements to this variable
(self.switch.rx.value <-> viewModel.test).disposed(by: self.disposeBag)
Or
(self.textfield.rx.text <-> viewModel.test).disposed(by: self.disposeBag)
with this error Cannot convert value of type 'BehaviorRelay<Any?>' to expected argument type 'BehaviorRelay<Bool>' or Cannot convert value of type 'BehaviorRelay<Any?>' to expected argument type 'BehaviorRelay<String?>'
How can I do this with RxSwift?
You can find here my <-> func:
infix operator <->
func <-> <T>(property: ControlProperty<T>, variable: BehaviorRelay<T>) -> Disposable {
let bindToUIDisposable = variable.asObservable()
.bind(to: property)
let bindToVariable = property
.subscribe(onNext: { n in
variable.accept(n)
}, onCompleted: {
bindToUIDisposable.dispose()
})
return Disposables.create(bindToUIDisposable, bindToVariable)
}
(The two-way binding doesn't cause an infinite loop in this case because UI elements don't emit values when modified programmatically, they only do it when the user changes the value. If the user flips the switch, it gets pushed to the Subject [BehaviorRelay] which then pushes the value back to the switch, but it ends there.)
You would have to cast your Element to an Any? with map and map the Any? back into the proper type when going from the BehaviorRelay to the UI element. It's very clunky and unsafe to do that.
Better would be to make your BehaviorRelay's element the correct type. You're going to have to know the type in order to do anything useful with it anyway.

Can I make self.entity a non optional for certian functions in a GKComponent using swift?

I'm using the GameplayKit entity component system to develop a game.
I have a number of GKComponent. Most of the instance functions require that self.entity is not nil, but it is an optional, as a component may be initialised before being attached to an entity.
If I "do things properly", I understand I should use guard (or if) to check that self.entity is not nil, for each function where I require it. This adds a chunk of extra code for each function, and in addition a function may require the entity has specific components to function.
Problem statement:
For some functions in a GKComponent, I want to specify that the function requires self.entity is not nil, and has some specific components, without needing a number of guard or if statements which bulks up my code.
Things I've tried:
I tried creating an extension to GKComponent.
The extension contains a function which throws an error if the entity is nil, returns true if it is not nil.
import Foundation
import GameplayKit
extension GKComponent {
enum ComponentExtensionError: Error {
case hasNoEntity
}
func requiresEntity() throws -> Bool {
if (self.entity != nil) {
return true
} else {
throw ComponentExtensionError.hasNoEntity
}
}
}
GKComponent function:
func setTileWalls () {
try? self.requiresEntity()
# Some stuff
}
This compiles, but doesn't solve my problem, as I still have to access the entity as self.entity?.somefunc().
I figured now I know that self.entity is not nil, I could proceed to set it as unwrapped...
func setTileWalls () {
try? self.requiresEntity()
self.entity = self.entity!
# Some stuff
}
But alas, you cannot SET self.entity.
I considered I could in stead modify the extension to return the entity, and then do something like...
func stTileWalls () {
guard let entity = self.requiresEntity() else { throw }
}
but then I'd need to modify each functions code to use entity rather than self.entity. I don't feel like this is optimal solution, but maybe an acceptable one.
My ideal solution would be to be able to call a function which checks that self has an entity, and some components, making them non optional for the scope, and throwing an error if any are nil.
Why? I'm frustrated by entity and any component always being optional (when I know it shouldn't be). If I understand correctly, "doing things properly" requires that I guard and throw (or return maybe?). Syntactically I feel it looks ugly and I feel like I'm missing something in terms of fixing this in an elegent way with Swift.
There is no easy solution to solve this issue if you want a safe solution that requires less boilerplate code than unwrapping an optional.
Throwing an error instead of returning nil is definitely a bad idea, since handling an error requires even more boilerplate code than safely unwrapping an optional.
You cannot override existing variables types, so you cannot make GKComponent.entity non-optional either.
Use guard statements for optional binding, that way you can minimise the boilerplate code for unwrapping the value.

Can't set nil to an optional property with custom setter in Swift

I have swift class with various properties, some of which have optional types.
class UserObject: PFUser{
//optional property
var optionalPhotoURL:String? {
get {
if let optionalPhotoURL:String = objectForKey("optionalPhotoURL"){
return optionalPhotoURL
}
//not needed but just for emphasis
return nil
}
//I am unable to set UserObject.optionalPhotoURL = nil with this setters
set {
if let newPhotoURL:String = newValue! {
setObject(newPhotoURL, forKey: "optionalPhotoURL")
}else{
self.optionalPhotoURL = nil
}
}
}
}
I am unable to set optionalPhotoURL as nil, if it already had a previous value assigned to it.
I guess my question is, how do i "unset" an optional property with custom setter?
Update
These setters all crash
set {
if let newPhotoURL:String = newValue {
setObject(newPhotoURL, forKey: "optionalPhotoURL")
}else{
self.optionalPhotoURL = nil
}
}
and this
set {
if (newValue != nil) {
setObject(newValue!, forKey: "optionalPhotoURL")
}else{
self.optionalPhotoURL = nil
}
}
What you have here is a computed property.
Swift properties can either be computed or stored. We can observe value changes in our stored properties by using didSet and willSet but here we still have a stored property.
In your case, since you have overridden set and get*, you don't have a stored property, you have a computed property. If you want a computed property to have a backing storage, you must create that independently.
So you may want something like this:
class FooClass {
private var storageProperty: String?
var accessProperty: String? {
get {
return self.storageProperty
}
set {
self.storageProperty = newValue
// or whatever logic you may like here
}
}
}
*: You can't override set without also overriding get. You can however override get without overriding set--this makes a readonly computed value.
Moreover, it's important that we implement our storage properties in this way over relying on key-value coding.
For starters, setObject(forKey:) approach doesn't even work on pure Swift types. This will only work on objects which inherit from Objective-C types. It's an inherited method from NSObject's compliance to NSKeyValueCoding protocol. Why the base object of Objective-C conforms to so many protocols is beyond me... but it does and there's nothing we can do about it.
If we have a code base in which some of our objects are inheriting from Objective-C objects (which basically any project will have, UIViewController, etc), and some of our objects are pure Swift objects (which you will tend to have when you're creating your own Swift classes from scratch), then our Swift objects will not be able to implement this same pattern. If we have some objects of both types, we'll either have to implement the pattern I show above for all of them (and then we have consistency) or we'll have to implement one pattern for some types and another for other types (Swift structs would definitely have to implement the above pattern, you can't just make them inherit from NSObject) (and then we have inconsistency, which we don't like).
But what's far worse about setObject(forKey:) is that the first argument of this method always will be of type AnyObject. There is no type safety to the method at all. Where things are stored via setObject(forKey:) is based purely on the key which we use. When we use setObject(forKey:), we take a pile of type-safety advantages that Swift gives us and we throw them out the window. If we don't care to leverage the advantages Swift gives us over Objective-C, why are we writing it in Swift at all?
We can't even make the stored property private when we use setObject(forKey:). Anyone who knows the key can call setObject(forKey:) and set that object to whatever they want. And that includes objects which are not strings. All we have to do to introduce a crash to this codebase is write a class extension or subclass which has a key collision on a different type other than what you've used (so maybe an NSData value for the same key). And even if it doesn't happen to be a different type, simply duplicating the same key for multiple properties is going to introduce bugs... and bugs that are hard to debug.
Never set a value of a computed property in its set scope by calling itself !
This causes an infinite loop and the app will crash.
I don't know which API setObject:forKey belongs to, but in the case of nil you are supposed to remove the object
set {
if let newPhotoURL = newValue {
setObject(newPhotoURL, forKey: "optionalPhotoURL")
} else {
removeObjectForKey("optionalPhotoURL")
}
}
Your property optionalPhotoURL is a computed property, it does not store any values:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/Properties.html
You might want to create an additional property which actually stores the value. However, why do you want to set it to nil, since you are not deleting they object in case of nil.

Can a condition be used to determine the type of a generic?

I will first explain what I'm trying to do and how I got to where I got stuck before getting to the question.
As a learning exercise for myself, I took some problems that I had already solved in Objective-C to see how I can solve them differently with Swift. The specific case that I got stuck on is a small piece that captures a value before and after it changes and interpolates between the two to create keyframes for an animation.
For this I had an object Capture with properties for the object, the key path and two id properties for the values before and after. Later, when interpolating the captured values I made sure that they could be interpolated by wrapping each of them in a Value class that used a class cluster to return an appropriate class depending on the type of value it wrapped, or nil for types that wasn't supported.
This works, and I am able to make it work in Swift as well following the same pattern, but it doesn't feel Swift like.
What worked
Instead of wrapping the captured values as a way of enabling interpolation, I created a Mixable protocol that the types could conform to and used a protocol extension for when the type supported the necessary basic arithmetic:
protocol SimpleArithmeticType {
func +(lhs: Self, right: Self) -> Self
func *(lhs: Self, amount: Double) -> Self
}
protocol Mixable {
func mix(with other: Self, by amount: Double) -> Self
}
extension Mixable where Self: SimpleArithmeticType {
func mix(with other: Self, by amount: Double) -> Self {
return self * (1.0 - amount) + other * amount
}
}
This part worked really well and enforced homogeneous mixing (that a type could only be mixed with its own type), which wasn't enforced in the Objective-C implementation.
Where I got stuck
The next logical step, and this is where I got stuck, seemed to be to make each Capture instance (now a struct) hold two variables of the same mixable type instead of two AnyObject. I also changed the initializer argument from being an object and a key path to being a closure that returns an object ()->T
struct Capture<T: Mixable> {
typealias Evaluation = () -> T
let eval: Evaluation
let before: T
var after: T {
return eval()
}
init(eval: Evaluation) {
self.eval = eval
self.before = eval()
}
}
This works when the type can be inferred, for example:
let captureInt = Capture {
return 3.0
}
// > Capture<Double>
but not with key value coding, which return AnyObject:\
let captureAnyObject = Capture {
return myObject.valueForKeyPath("opacity")!
}
error: cannot invoke initializer for type 'Capture' with an argument list of type '(() -> _)'
AnyObject does not conform to the Mixable protocol, so I can understand why this doesn't work. But I can check what type the object really is, and since I'm only covering a handful of mixable types, I though I could cover all the cases and return the correct type of Capture. Too see if this could even work I made an even simpler example
A simpler example
struct Foo<T> {
let x: T
init(eval: ()->T) {
x = eval()
}
}
which works when type inference is guaranteed:
let fooInt = Foo {
return 3
}
// > Foo<Int>
let fooDouble = Foo {
return 3.0
}
// > Foo<Double>
But not when the closure can return different types
let condition = true
let foo = Foo {
if condition {
return 3
} else {
return 3.0
}
}
error: cannot invoke initializer for type 'Foo' with an argument list of type '(() -> _)'
I'm not even able to define such a closure on its own.
let condition = true // as simple as it could be
let evaluation = {
if condition {
return 3
} else {
return 3.0
}
}
error: unable to infer closure type in the current context
My Question
Is this something that can be done at all? Can a condition be used to determine the type of a generic? Or is there another way to hold two variables of the same type, where the type was decided based on a condition?
Edit
What I really want is to:
capture the values before and after a change and save the pair (old + new) for later (a heterogeneous collection of homogeneous pairs).
go through all the collected values and get rid of the ones that can't be interpolated (unless this step could be integrated with the collection step)
interpolate each homogeneous pair individually (mixing old + new).
But it seems like this direction is a dead end when it comes to solving that problem. I'll have to take a couple of steps back and try a different approach (and probably ask a different question if I get stuck again).
As discussed on Twitter, the type must be known at compile time. Nevertheless, for the simple example at the end of the question you could just explicitly type
let evaluation: Foo<Double> = { ... }
and it would work.
So in the case of Capture and valueForKeyPath: IMHO you should cast (either safely or with a forced cast) the value to the Mixable type you expect the value to be and it should work fine. Afterall, I'm not sure valueForKeyPath: is supposed to return different types depending on a condition.
What is the exact case where you would like to return 2 totally different types (that can't be implicitly casted as in the simple case of Int and Double above) in the same evaluation closure?
in my full example I also have cases for CGPoint, CGSize, CGRect, CATransform3D
The limitations are just as you have stated, because of Swift's strict typing. All types must be definitely known at compile time, and each thing can be of only one type - even a generic (it is resolved by the way it is called at compile time). Thus, the only thing you can do is turn your type into into an umbrella type that is much more like Objective-C itself:
let condition = true
let evaluation = {
() -> NSObject in // *
if condition {
return 3
} else {
return NSValue(CGPoint:CGPointMake(0,1))
}
}