Where to initialize in Swift? - swift

Question

I have a very general question about the Initialization in Swift.
Unlike in Objective C it's now possible to call the init() directly at the declaration outside of my functions:
e.g.
class ViewController: UIViewController {
let myView: UIView = UIView()
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
myView.frame = getFrame()
myView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
self.view.addSubview(myView)
}
func getFrame() -> CGRect {
return CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100)
}
}
In Objective C I would have done the initialization in my function.
But what if I want to call an Initializer with parameters which are not set yet?
e.g.
I want to init with a frame which is being calculated in a func()
class ViewController: UIViewController {
//THIS IS NOT WOKRING
let myView: UIView = UIView(frame: getFrame())
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
myView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
self.view.addSubview(myView)
}
func getFrame() -> CGRect {
return CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100)
}
}
I don't wanna do my initializations at two different places in the Code. Is there any general pattern for the initializations?

Answer 1

So your options for initialisation in swift are numerous. With your current example you cannot use the method getFrame() yet because you do not yet have a reference to self as the ViewController has not get been initialised. Instead you could use:
let myView: UIView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100))
As this does not require the reference to self. Alternatively you could lazy instantiation which will get run after self is available (this can only be used with var not let:
lazy var myView: UIView = {
return UIView(frame:self.getFrame())
}()
To answer your question, when using UIKit class where you often don't have control over their instantiation you can keep doing it the same was as you were in objective c and use implicitly unwrapped optionals (to prevent you having to use a ! or ? every time you instantiate a variable, e.g.:
var myView: UIView!
override func viewDidLoad(){
super.viewDidLoad();
myView = UIView(frame:getFrame())
}
This however does not work with let constants, as they need to be assigned either immediately or in the constructor of the object. Hope this helps.