Encoding/Decoding an array of objects which implements a protocol in Swift 2 - swift

Question

I have got a class that inherits from NSObject and I want it to be NSCoding compliant. But I ran into trouble while encoding an array of objects which should implement a protocol.
protocol MyProtocol {
var myDescription: String { get }
}
class DummyClass: NSObject, NSCopying, MyProtocol {
var myDescription: String {
return "Some description"
}
func encodeWithCoder(aCoder: NSCoder) {
// does not need to do anything since myDescription is a computed property
}
override init() { super.init() }
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) { super.init() }
}
class MyClass: NSObject, NSCoding {
let myCollection: [MyProtocol]
init(myCollection: [MyProtocol]) {
self.myCollection = myCollection
super.init()
}
required convenience init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
let collection = aDecoder.decodeObjectForKey("collection") as! [MyProtocol]
self.init(myCollection: collection)
}
func encodeWithCoder(aCoder: NSCoder) {
aCoder.encodeObject(myCollection, forKey: "collection")
}
}
For aCoder.encodeObject(myCollection, forKey: "collection") I get the error:
Cannot convert value of type '[MyProtocol]' to expected argument type 'AnyObject?'
OK, a protocol obviously is not an instance of a class and so it isn't AnyObject? but I've no idea how to fix that. Probably there is a trick that I'm not aware? Or do you do archiving/serialization differently in Swift as in Objective-C?
There's probably a problem with let collection = aDecoder.decodeObjectForKey("collection") as! [MyProtocol], too but the compiler doesn't complain yet…

Answer 1

I've just found the solution myself: The key is to map myCollection into [AnyObject] and vice-versa, like so:
class MyClass: NSObject, NSCoding {
let myCollection: [MyProtocol]
init(myCollection: [MyProtocol]) {
self.myCollection = myCollection
super.init()
}
required convenience init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
let collection1 = aDecoder.decodeObjectForKey("collection") as! [AnyObject]
let collection2: [MyProtocol] = collection1.map { $0 as! MyProtocol }
self.init(myCollection: collection2)
}
func encodeWithCoder(aCoder: NSCoder) {
let aCollection: [AnyObject] = myCollection.map { $0 as! AnyObject }
aCoder.encodeObject(aCollection, forKey: "collection")
}
}

Answer 2

I know your title specifies Swift 2, but just for reference, for a similar problem I was working on, I found that in Swift 3, you don't need to convert anymore to AnyObject.
The following works for me in Swift 3 (using your example):
class MyClass: NSObject, NSCoding {
let myCollection: [MyProtocol]
init(myCollection: [MyProtocol]) {
self.myCollection = myCollection
super.init()
}
required convenience init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
let collection = aDecoder.decodeObject(forKey: "collection") as! [MyProtocol]
self.init(myCollection: collection)
}
func encodeWithCoder(aCoder: NSCoder) {
aCoder.encode(aCollection, forKey: "collection")
}
}