swift 3 Calculate distance to current location and sort result from closet to furthest - swift

Question

I'm trying to to calculate the distance from an event to my current location, sort the results and populate that in a tableview. I keep getting error for optional unwrapped value distance is nil.
private func observeEvents() {
refHandle = ref.observe(.childAdded, with: { (snapshot) -> Void in
let eventDetails = snapshot.value as! Dictionary<String, AnyObject>
let eventID = snapshot.key
let location = eventDetails["location"] as! String!
//calculating distance
self.forwardGeocoding(address: location!)
let distance = self.eventLocation?.distance(from: self.currentLocation!) as Double!
//end calculating
let dateTime = eventDetails["dateTime"] as! String!
let addedByUser = eventDetails["addedByUser"] as! String!
let attending = eventDetails["attendance"] as! String!
if let name = eventDetails["eventName"] as! String! , name.characters.count > 0
{
self.events.append(Events(id:eventID, name: name, location: location!, dateTime: dateTime!, addedByUser: addedByUser!, attending: attending! , distance: distance!))
self.events.sort(by: { $0.distance < $1.distance})
self.tableView.reloadData()
} else {
print("Error ! Can't load events from database")
}
})
} //load events data to uitableview
I created a function to return a CLLocation from an address
func forwardGeocoding(address: String) {
CLGeocoder().geocodeAddressString(address, completionHandler: { (placemarks, error) in
if error != nil {
print(error!)
return
}
if (placemarks?.count)! > 0 {
let placemark = placemarks?[0]
self.eventLocation = placemark?.location
}
})
}

Answer 1

I finally figured out the answer. The issue was the function for distance is called asynchronously there for the result would always be nil. I created a completion handler for the forwardGeocoding function to return latitude and longitude from the address string and call the result inside the nested firebase listener. Here is the code, I hope if someone ran into something similar problem to me will find it helpful.
//Get lat and long
func getCoordinates(address: String, completionHandler: #escaping (_ lat: CLLocationDegrees?, _ long: CLLocationDegrees?, _ error: Error?) -> ()) -> Void {
var _:CLLocationDegrees
var _:CLLocationDegrees
let geocoder = CLGeocoder()
geocoder.geocodeAddressString(address) { (placemarks: [CLPlacemark]!, error: Error!) in
if error != nil {
print("Geocode failed with error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
} else if placemarks.count > 0 {
let placemark = placemarks[0] as CLPlacemark
let location = placemark.location
let lat = location?.coordinate.latitude
let long = location?.coordinate.longitude
completionHandler(lat, long, nil)
}
}
}
Nested call in firebase listener
refHandle = ref.observe(.childAdded, with: { (snapshot) -> Void in
let location = event["address"] as! String
self.getCoordinates(address: location!) { lat, long, error in
if error != nil {
print("Error")
} else {
self.latitude = lat
self.longitude = long
let distance = CLLocation(latitude: self.latitude!,longitude: self.longitude!).distance(from: self.currentLocation!)
if let name = eventDetails["eventName"] as! String! , name.characters.count > 0
{
self.events.append(Events(id:eventID, name: name, location: location!, dateTime: dateTime!, addedByUser: addedByUser!, attending: attending!, distance: distance))
self.events.sort(by: { $0.distance < $1.distance})
self.tableView.reloadData()
} else {
print("Error ! Can't load events from database")
}
}
}
})