Swift: The proper way to initialize model class with a lot of properties - swift

Question

How do you initialize your classes/structs with a lot of properties?
This question could probably be asked without Swift context but Swift brings a flavour to it, so I add Swift tag in headline and tags.
Let's say you have a User class with 20 properties. Most of them should not be nil or empty. Let's assume these properties are not interdependent. Let's assume that 33% of it should be constant (let) by the logic of the class. Let's assume that at least 65% of them do not have meaningful default values. How would you design this class and initialize an instance of it?
So far I have few thoughts but none of it seems to be completely satisfactory to me:
put all of the properties linearly in the class and make huge init method:
class User {
// there is 20 properties like that
let id : String
let username : String
let email : String
...
var lastLoginDate : Date
var lastPlayDate : Date
// then HUUUUGE init
init(id: String,
username: String,
...
lastPlayDate: Date) {
}
}
try to group properties into sub types and deal with smaller inits separately
class User {
struct ID {
let id : String
let username : String
let email : String
}
struct Activity {
var lastLoginDate : Date
var lastPlayDate : Date
}
let id : ID
...
var lastActivity : Activity
// then not so huge init
init(id: ID,
...
lastActivity: Activity) {
}
}
another solution is to break requirements a bit: either declare some of the properties optional and set values after init or declare dummy default values and set normal values after init, which conceptually seems to be the same
class User {
// there is 20 properties like that
let id : String
let username : String
let email : String
...
var lastLoginDate : Date?
var lastPlayDate : Date?
// then not so huge init
init(id: String,
username: String,
email: String) {
}
}
// In other code
var user = User(id: "1", username: "user", email: "user#example.com"
user.lastLoginDate = Date()
Is there a nice paradigm/pattern how to deal with such situations?

Answer 1

You can try the builder pattern.
Example
class DeathStarBuilder {
var x: Double?
var y: Double?
var z: Double?
typealias BuilderClosure = (DeathStarBuilder) -> ()
init(buildClosure: BuilderClosure) {
buildClosure(self)
}
}
struct DeathStar : CustomStringConvertible {
let x: Double
let y: Double
let z: Double
init?(builder: DeathStarBuilder) {
if let x = builder.x, let y = builder.y, let z = builder.z {
self.x = x
self.y = y
self.z = z
} else {
return nil
}
}
var description:String {
return "Death Star at (x:\(x) y:\(y) z:\(z))"
}
}
let empire = DeathStarBuilder { builder in
builder.x = 0.1
builder.y = 0.2
builder.z = 0.3
}
let deathStar = DeathStar(builder:empire)
Example taken from here: https://github.com/ochococo/Design-Patterns-In-Swift
If you are looking for a bit more Java like solution, you can try something like this.
Alternative Example
final class NutritionFacts {
private let servingSize: Int
private let servings: Int
private let calories: Int
private let fat: Int
private let sodium: Int
private let carbs: Int
init(builder: Builder) {
servingSize = builder.servingSize
servings = builder.servings
calories = builder.calories
fat = builder.fat
sodium = builder.sodium
carbs = builder.carbs
}
class Builder {
let servingSize: Int
let servings: Int
private(set) var calories = 0
private(set) var fat = 0
private(set) var carbs = 0
private(set) var sodium = 0
init(servingSize: Int, servings: Int) {
self.servingSize = servingSize
self.servings = servings
}
func calories(value: Int) -> Builder {
calories = value
return self
}
func fat(value: Int) -> Builder {
fat = value
return self
}
func carbs(value: Int) -> Builder {
carbs = value
return self
}
func sodium(value: Int) -> Builder {
sodium = value
return self
}
func build() -> NutritionFacts {
return NutritionFacts(builder: self)
}
}
}
let facts = NutritionFacts.Builder(servingSize: 10, servings: 1)
.calories(value: 20)
.carbs(value: 2)
.fat(value: 5)
.build()
Example taken from: http://ctarda.com/2017/09/elegant-swift-default-parameters-vs-the-builder-pattern