A Flock of Swifts
We are a group of people excited by the Swift language. We meet each Saturday morning to share and discuss Swift-related topics.
All people and all skill levels are welcome to join.
2022.05.21
2022.05.14
Classifying Sounds
Rainer is working on using CoreML models for classifying. One suggestion (Ed A.) to split out different songs was to use ShazamKit: https://wwdcbysundell.com/2021/roll-your-own-shazam-with-shazamkit/
Searchable
Mark asked about optimizing a list view with a search text field. The recommendation from Josh was to check out the .searchable(text: Binding<String>).
Caching
Ray presented improvements from last week to caching. Some things discussed:
- Making generic keys
- Implementing low memory warning
- Updating the fetch method to include a closure to compute the real value
- Making errors explicit
Regarding the last point, Josh pointed out that it is probably not a good idea to cache errors. We came up with a solution during the meeting but after the meeting I realized that it is actually better not to cache tasks if errors aren't being cached. The final code came out like this:
import Foundation
import UIKit.UIApplication
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
private var values: [Key: Value] = [:]
internal var lru: [Key] = []
private var isMonitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
}
func evictAll() {
values = [:]
lru = []
}
func evict(key: Key) {
values.removeValue(forKey: key)
lru.removeAll(where: {$0 == key})
}
@discardableResult
func fetch(key: Key,
fallback: @escaping () async throws -> Value) async throws -> Value {
startMonitoringMemory()
updateLRU(for: key)
// Get it and go.
if let value = values[key] { return value }
let value = try await fallback()
values[key] = value
return value
}
private func trim(count: Int) {
if count > 0 {
lru.reversed()[0..<count].forEach { key in
values.removeValue(forKey: key)
}
lru = lru.dropLast(count)
}
}
private func updateLRU(for key: Key) {
lru.removeAll(where: { $0 == key})
lru.insert(key, at: 0)
let extra = max(lru.count - maxCount, 0)
trim(count: extra)
}
private func lowMemoryAction() {
evictAll()
}
private func startMonitoringMemory() {
if !isMonitoringMemory {
Task { @MainActor in
NotificationCenter.default
.addObserver(forName: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification,
object: nil, queue: nil) { [weak self] _ in
Task { [weak self] in
await self?.lowMemoryAction()
}
}
}
isMonitoringMemory = true
}
}
}Josh was wondering if memory warnings could be done in the initializer using a Combine publisher.
fileprivate let outOfMemory = NSNotification.Name(rawValue: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification.rawValue)
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
@Published private var tasks: [Key: Task<Value?, Never>] = [:]
@Published internal var lru: [Key] = []
var monitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: outOfMemory).map { _ in [:] }.assign(to: &$tasks)
NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: outOfMemory).map { _ in [] }.assign(to: &$lru)
}This works but he notes that you get the following warning: This use of actor 'self' can only appear in an async initializer; this is an error in Swift 6
Animation in Core Animation, UIKit and SwiftUI
This presentation by Josh H. covered the ins and outs of implicit and explicit animations. As background reading, he recommends reading this: http://rensbr.eu/blog/swiftui-render-loop/
Here are some points he made with his code:
- Core Animations are implicit.
- UIView animations are implicit.
- The new SwiftUI implicit animation API specifies the property to trigger the animation off of.
- When this specified property triggers, all implicit animations fire.
- The inner-most animation wins.
- Explicit animations (
withAnimation) override implicit ones.
2022.05.07
Bridging async/await and callbacks
Peter discussed the design of a system he was building. Continuations provide a bridge between the worlds.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/3814988-withcheckedcontinuation
Building an LRU cache
We walked through making an LRU cache example. The original design that I proposed had a way to get a value from the cache and another to update it. After we finished the example, Josh suggested that a better API would be to provide a closure to do resource creation. Since Task is effecively a future, we can make the cache hold these tasks. That way multiple clients asking for the same resource will grab the same task rather than needlessly spawn multiple versions of the same work. Also missing was some low memory handling. After the meeting I (Ray) refactored the interface and cleaned up some of the shortcomings. The solution looks like this:
//
// LRUCache.swift
// Practice
//
// Created by Ray Fix on 5/7/22.
//
import Foundation
import UIKit.UIImage
typealias ImageCache = LRUCache<UUID, UIImage>
actor LRUCache<Key: Hashable, Value> {
let maxCount: Int
private var tasks: [Key: Task<Value?, Never>] = [:]
internal var lru: [Key] = []
var monitoringMemory = false
init(maxCount: Int) {
self.maxCount = maxCount
// Memory monitoring is deferred until first point of use
// so that we don't need an async initializer for the actor.
}
func evictAll() {
tasks.values.forEach { $0.cancel() }
tasks = [:]
lru = []
}
func evict(key: Key) {
if let task = tasks[key] { task.cancel() }
tasks.removeValue(forKey: key)
lru.removeAll(where: {$0 == key})
}
@discardableResult
func fetch(key: Key,
priority: TaskPriority? = nil,
fallback: @escaping (Key) async -> Value?) async -> Value? {
startMonitorMemory()
updateLRU(for: key)
// Get it and go.
if let task = tasks[key] { return await task.value }
// Spin up a new task, and get the value.
let task = Task(priority: priority) { await fallback(key) }
tasks[key] = task
return await task.value
}
private func trim(count: Int) {
if count > 0 {
lru.reversed()[0..<count].forEach { key in
tasks[key]?.cancel()
tasks.removeValue(forKey: key)
}
lru = lru.dropLast(count)
}
}
private func updateLRU(for key: Key) {
lru.removeAll(where: { $0 == key})
lru.insert(key, at: 0)
let extra = max(lru.count - maxCount, 0)
trim(count: extra)
}
private func lowMemoryAction() {
evictAll()
}
private func startMonitorMemory() {
if !monitoringMemory {
Task { @MainActor in
NotificationCenter.default
.addObserver(forName: UIApplication.didReceiveMemoryWarningNotification,
object: nil, queue: nil) { [weak self] _ in
Task { [weak self] in
await self?.lowMemoryAction()
}
}
}
monitoringMemory = true
}
}
}Some tests:
//
// PracticeTests.swift
// PracticeTests
//
// Created by Ray Fix on 5/7/22.
//
import XCTest
@testable import Practice
class PracticeTests: XCTestCase {
func testLRUCacheBasic() async throws {
let cache = LRUCache<String, Int>(maxCount: 3)
// Test getting value from the fallback
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in 42 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 42)
}
// Test getting value from cache
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in nil })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 42)
}
// Test getting value from the fallback
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic")
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
}
func testReset() async throws {
let cache = LRUCache<String, Int>(maxCount: 3)
do {
await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 0 })
await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 1 })
await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 2 })
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 0)
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 1)
}
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 2)
}
// 210
// Insert magic4 which will evict magic0
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
// 321
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic1", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 1)
}
// 132
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic2", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 2)
}
//213
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic0", fallback: { _ in 16 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 16)
}
// 021
do {
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 17 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 17)
}
// 302
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic3")
let value = await cache.fetch(key: "magic3", fallback: { _ in 17 })
XCTAssertEqual(value, 17)
}
// 302
do {
let lru = await cache.lru
XCTAssertEqual(lru, ["magic3", "magic0", "magic2"])
}
do {
await cache.evict(key: "magic0")
let lru = await cache.lru
XCTAssertEqual(lru, ["magic3", "magic2"])
}
}
}2022.04.30
Server Side Solutions
Tim Condon of the Swift Server Work Group (SSWG) gave their annual update on the Swift blog https://www.swift.org/blog/sswg-update/
Of interest to the group were the different frameworks:
- Vapor (https://github.com/vapor/vapor)
- Smoke (https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework)
- Hummingbird (https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework)
All of these have made progress to async/await.
For the problem being asked about something as simple as a WebDAV server where you can get and put files might be enough.
Localization in SwiftUI
We talked about how to do Swift localization. Creating a Swift strings file (dictstring for pluralization). The strings file can contain stuff like this:
// The welcome string that appears at launch.
"CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE %@" = "Hello, world! %@";
/* The welcome string that appears at launch. */
"CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE %@" = "%@ こんにちは、元気？";
This can be used in the code like so:
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
let thing = "Ray"
Text("CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE \(thing)")
}
}It is probably good to use names like CONTENT_VIEW_TITLE so it is obvious when they are wrong and just in case the same word in English maps to different translations in the target languages.
Translations can be imported and exported through the products menu .xcloc files that have an editor that translators can use.
Schemes let you change the language of the app to test. There are special language for simulating text, having lots of diacritics, etc.
The main type is LocalizedStringKey which does the lookup.
2022.04.23
Build problems
- Discussed the plight of large projects with lots of pods having build problems
Adding Build configurations:
Thunderbolt Hubs
- You want thunderbolt ports? Be prepared to spend the money.
- Search the usual suspects, amazon, ebay, macsales, newegg, etc
Making Diagrams
You can make diagrams using Omnigraffle from https://Omnigroup.com
Local Swift Packages
Ray demo'ed making a local package using Josh's project from last week. Created JoshKit and did various other experiments. The documentation is here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift_packages/
Looked at the Swift Package Index project:
Ray will do a presentation on Tuesday for the SDiOS group.
https://www.meetup.com/sdiosdevelopers/events/284812539/
Extensible build tools in SwiftPM
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0303-swiftpm-extensible-build-tools.md
2022.04.16
Linting
Talked about introducing linting to a group.
- Make a separate target for linting
- Run lint only on the diffs
- RW has a style guide that uses lint for checking
https://github.com/raywenderlich/swift-style-guide/blob/main/SWIFTLINT.markdown
New Proposals
Several new proposals are landing including many around RegEx.
Here are some links to the proposals. Will be covering in future meetings.
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0350-regex-type-overview.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0351-regex-builder.md
Hex Grids
Need to implement a hex grid? You can use arrays with special offsets.
https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/
Match Three Continued
Josh completed his epic presentation on using SwiftUI to implement a match three style game. You can leverage the SwiftUI system to do all of the layout and animation for you. Some cool subtopics included:
- A
withfunction for mutation - User defined coordinate spaces
- Using async system to trigger animations
- Static member lookup for code clarity at the call site
- Functional board manipulations and 2d algorithms
- Types of animations (transitions vs property changes)
code: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Bejeweled
2022.04.09
WWDC Announced
Apple announced an all online meeting from June 6-10 along with an limited Apple Park June 6th event for developers and students.
Transitions and Forms
Joe is working on a SwiftUI app that has a bunch of form views that want to slide back and forth. His initial version used the AnyTransition view to accomplish transitions. The .move transition only moves about halfway and using combined lets you get something that looks like a full transition.
enum MoveDirection {
case normal
case undo
var intent: AnyTransition {
switch self {
case .normal:
return AnyTransition.asymmetric(
insertion: AnyTransition.move(edge: .trailing)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .trailing)),
removal: AnyTransition.move(edge: .leading)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .leading)))
case .undo:
return AnyTransition.asymmetric(
insertion: AnyTransition.move(edge: .leading)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .leading)),
removal: AnyTransition.move(edge: .trailing)
.combined(with: .move(edge: .trailing)))
}
}
}These transition can be used with the .transition() modifier.
Josh noted that SwiftUI's TabView can be used with a style to make something very analogous to a page controller. We worked through the example and it looks like this:
//
// ContentView.swift
//
// Created by Joe Mestrovich on 3/6/22.
//
import SwiftUI
struct ContentView: View {
@State var selectedForm = 0
var body: some View {
VStack {
ZStack {
Rectangle()
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: 200, alignment: .top)
Text("This space intentionally left blank.")
.fontWeight(.bold)
.foregroundColor(.white)
}
TabView(selection: $selectedForm) {
AnyForm(name: "A",
next: { selectedForm = 1 },
prev: nil ).tag(1)
AnyForm(name: "B",
next: { selectedForm = 2 },
prev: { selectedForm = 0 }).tag(1)
AnyForm(name: "C",
next: { selectedForm = 3 },
prev: { selectedForm = 1 }).tag(2)
AnyForm(name: "D",
next: nil,
prev: { selectedForm = 2 }).tag(3)
}
.tabViewStyle(.page(indexDisplayMode: .never))
}
}
}
struct AnyForm: View {
var name: String
var next: (() -> Void)?
var prev: (() -> Void)?
var body: some View {
ZStack {
Rectangle()
.cornerRadius(24)
.padding()
VStack {
Spacer()
Text(name)
.font(.largeTitle)
.fontWeight(.heavy)
.foregroundColor(.white)
Spacer()
Button {
withAnimation {
next?()
}
} label: {
Text("normal move")
.fontWeight(.bold)
}
.disabled(next == nil)
Spacer()
Button {
withAnimation {
prev?()
}
} label: {
Text("undo move")
.fontWeight(.bold)
}
.disabled(prev == nil)
Spacer()
}
}
}
}
struct ContentView_Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
ContentView()
}
}Match Three Game
Josh began building a match three game that he will continue on next week. Some points that he touched on:
- View models should be @MainActor
- You can use
typealias ViewModel = GameViewModelto make a localvar viewModel: ViewModelin your views. - Special care must be taken to initialize main actor view models that are declared with
@StateModel - Preference keys can be used to propogate layout information up the view hierarchy
- It is easy to create custom coordinate spaces that you can use with a geometry reader to compute frames with.
import SwiftUI
@MainActor
final class GameViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published private(set) var cells: [Cell] = []
struct Cell: Identifiable, Hashable {
let id: UUID = .init()
var position: Int
var x: Int { position % Constant.boardWidth }
var y: Int { position / Constant.boardWidth }
var content: Int = Constant.cellContents.indices.randomElement() ?? 0
var isMatched = false
}
enum Constant {
static let boardWidth = 8
static let boardHeight = 8
static var cellCount: Int { boardWidth * boardHeight }
static let adjacentOffsets: [[(Int, Int)]] = [
[(0, 1), (0, 0), (0, -1)],
[(1, 0), (0, 0), (-1, 0)],
[(-1, -1), (0, 0), (1, 1)],
[(-1, 1), (0, 0), (1, -1)]
]
static let cellContents = ["suit.spade.fill", "circlebadge.fill", "flame.fill", "tag.circle.fill", "ladybug.fill", "face.dashed.fill"]
static let colors = [#colorLiteral(red: 0.1764705926, green: 0.4980392158, blue: 0.7568627596, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.8078431487, green: 0.02745098062, blue: 0.3333333433, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.9372549057, green: 0.3490196168, blue: 0.1921568662, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.8623957038, green: 0.2169953585, blue: 1, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 0.4666666687, green: 0.7647058964, blue: 0.2666666806, alpha: 1), #colorLiteral(red: 1, green: 0.8398167491, blue: 0, alpha: 1)]
}
init() {
cells = Self.newBoard()
}
private static func newBoard() -> [Cell] {
.init(
(0..<Constant.cellCount).map { index in
Cell(position: index)
}
)
}
}
struct SquaresPreferenceKey: PreferenceKey {
typealias Value = [Int: CGRect]
static var defaultValue: Value { [:] }
static func reduce(value: inout [Int : CGRect], nextValue: () -> [Int : CGRect]) {
nextValue().forEach { value[$0] = $1 }
}
}
struct ContentView: View {
typealias ViewModel = GameViewModel
@StateObject private var viewModel: ViewModel
@State private var squares = SquaresPreferenceKey.defaultValue
private enum Space: Hashable {
case board
}
init(viewModel: ViewModel) {
_viewModel = StateObject(wrappedValue: viewModel)
}
var body: some View {
ZStack(alignment: .topLeading) {
VStack(spacing: 2) {
ForEach(0..<GameViewModel.Constant.boardHeight, id: \.self) { y in
HStack(spacing: 2) {
ForEach(0..<GameViewModel.Constant.boardWidth, id: \.self) { x in
let index = x + y * GameViewModel.Constant.boardWidth
GeometryReader { proxy in
RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 4)
.aspectRatio(1, contentMode: .fit)
.preference(
key: SquaresPreferenceKey.self,
value: [index: proxy.frame(in: .named(Space.board))]
)
}
}
}
}
}
}
.coordinateSpace(name: Space.board)
.onPreferenceChange(SquaresPreferenceKey.self) { squares = $0 }
}
}2022.04.02
Update
Bill suggests to update to 15.4.1 ASAP.
Practicing for Interviews
Don't panic, reason through the problem and pay attention to
John Brewer recommends "Cracking the Code Interview"
Accessiblity
Lots of insights and discussion about Bluetooth and Telephony from Carlyn.
Also:
https://www.ablenetinc.com/switches/all-switches/
Learn about Modern Collection Views
This app shows a bunch of different layouts (including table-like) layouts.
Ed Arenberg's app is in public beta
There is a large wordset community. After getting a good dataset he wrote a bunch of quick lookup functions.
Franklin suggested using the airport community if he is looking for a wider audience.
Tries
//
// PrefixTree.swift
// Boggle-SwiftUI
//
// Created by Joshua Homann on 12/13/19.
// Copyright © 2019 Joshua Homann. All rights reserved.
//
import Foundation
final class PrefixTree<SomeCollection: RangeReplaceableCollection> where SomeCollection.Element: Hashable {
typealias Element = SomeCollection.Element
private var children: [Element: Self]
private var isTerminal: Bool = false
required init() {
self.children = [:]
}
init(elements: [SomeCollection]) {
self.children = [:]
elements.forEach { self.insert($0) }
}
func insert(_ collection: SomeCollection) {
let terminalNode = collection.reduce(into: self) { node, element in
let child = node.children[element, default: Self()]
node.children[element] = child
node = child
}
terminalNode.isTerminal = true
}
func contains(_ collection: SomeCollection) -> Bool {
collection.reduce(into: self, { $0 = $0?.children[$1]})?.isTerminal == true
}
func contains(prefix: SomeCollection) -> Bool {
return prefix.reduce(into: self, { $0 = $0?.children[$1]}) != nil
}
}2022.03.26
CI Servers and Security
We began today talking about CI servers and automatically publishing to test flight. If you are in a large organization you have to be careful about sharing keys to the app store API because it could allow anyone (including former employees) to publish or remove apps from the app store. Carl suggested that you might want to do CI as an automated process but leave app publishing up to a human who has special access to the keys.
Group Activity Sharing
Ed gave a demo of an app he is making that uses group activity sharing. He found out about it with this tweet:
https://mobile.twitter.com/imryanw/status/1486815964251320321
There is some documentation here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/groupactivities/groupactivitysharingcontroller
We talked about message passing to keep shared apps in sync. Josh pointed out that this is a real strength of a unidirectional redux architecture where state can be be derived by an initial value and a list of every subsequent change.
Async Sequence Library
Peter alerted us to a new Apple Swift library for Async Sequences that provides much of the Combine functionality:
https://www.swift.org/blog/swift-async-algorithms/
Josh notes that sharing a sequence (like combine does) still seems to be an issue that is not addressed.
Build Partial Block Proposal 0348
Josh took us on a tour of a new proposal:
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0348-buildpartialblock.md
Accepting this proposal would solve the "you can only have 10 subviews in a container view" in SwiftUI problem. It could also be used for other domain specific languages (DSLs) such as RegEx or HTML or specifying neural network architectures.
This talk at WWDC21 about making DSLs with result builders:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10253/
The thing that I really like about Becca's talk is how she uses compiler generated messages as a todo list for adding new functionality. Brilliant.
Josh has demo'ed making result builders in the past:
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/AttributedStringBuilder
Result Builder Snippet
@resultBuilder
struct <#Name#>Builder {
typealias Expression = <#Expression#>
typealias Component = <#Component#>
typealias FinalResult = <#FinalResult#>
static func buildBlock(_ components: Component...) -> Component {
buildArray(components)
}
static func buildExpression(_ expression: Expression) -> Component {
}
static func buildOptional(_ component: Component?) -> Component {
component ?? <#empty#>
}
static func buildEither(first component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildEither(second component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildArray(_ components: [Component]) -> Component {
}
static func buildLimitedAvailability(_ component: Component) -> Component {
component
}
static func buildFinalResult(_ component: Component) -> FinalResult {
}
}2022.03.19
Swift 5.6
We discussed the features in Swift 5.6 in Xcode 13.3.
https://www.swift.org/blog/swift-5.6-released/
- Another way to think about
anyis "box" because it make explicit there is a boxing cost to using protocols as a "base-class".
We talked about method dispatch. https://blog.allegro.tech/2014/12/swift-method-dispatching.html
Swift 5.7 and beyond
Proposals we focus on include improvements some and any. We also looked at the syntax shortening proposal for if let name = name {} to if let name {}
Implementing Search
Caleb was looking for some advice about how to speed up his fuzzy search performance.
Several suggestions:
- Put the work on a background task
- Do transformation of the data model early and cache it
- Reverse the order of the loop
- Look into other approaches such as RegEx, computing Levenshtein distance, etc
Here is a FRP example of solving the problem.
final class CardSearchViewModel: ObservableObject {
@Published var searchTerm: String = ""
@Published private(set) var cards: [Card] = []
init(
cardSearchService: CardSearchServiceProtocol = CardSearchService()
) {
$searchTerm
.debounce(for: .seconds(1), scheduler: DispatchQueue.main)
.receive(on: DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated))
.removeDuplicates()
.map { searchTerm -> AnyPublisher<[MagicCard], Never> in
searchTerm.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespacesAndNewlines).isEmpty
? Just([]).eraseToAnyPublisher()
: cardSearchService
.search(query: searchTerm)
.replaceError(with: [])
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
.switchToLatest()
.map { $0.map(Card.init(magicCard:)) }
.receive(on: DispatchQueue.main)
.assign(to: &$cards)
}
}Manu mentioned: Premature optimization is the Root of Evil
2022.03.12
- We discussed use of the
@MainActortag for functions and closures as well as theMainActorsingleton.
Autoclosures
- We revisited why you cannot write `XCTAssertTrue(await someAsyncFunction())
- We looked at the signature for XCTAssertTrue:
public func XCTAssertTrue(_ expression: @autoclosure () throws -> Bool, _ message: @autoclosure () -> String = "", file: StaticString = #filePath, line: UInt = #line)- We discussed what an
@autoclosureis and why we would want to use one by looking by making an analog of the??operator:
infix operator ?!
func ?!<Value>(_ lhs: Value?, rhs: Value) -> Value {
guard let lhs = lhs else { return rhs }
return lhs
}- We saw that the purpose of
@autoclosureto is to defer expensive work (and possibly only perform it under certain conditions). We saw thatXCTAssertTruewants to capture the error for its@autoclosureand reasoned that this is why the function is written with an@autoclosure - We then wrote a function with
Resultto solve the@autoclosureproblem:
extension Result where Failure == Error {
init(awaiting operation: () async throws -> Success) async {
do {
self = .success(try await operation())
} catch {
self = .failure(error)
}
}
}- we looked at a more declarative solution:
class Tests_macOS: XCTestCase {
func testA() async throws {
try await
after { try await a() }
assert: { XCTAssertTrue($0) }
}
}
func after<Value>(
_ operation: () async throws -> Value,
assert: (Value) throws -> Void
) async rethrows -> Void {
let value = try await operation()
try assert(value)
}- We didn't make it to the final one line version, but its listed here:
func a() async throws -> Bool {
true
}
class Tests_macOS: XCTestCase {
func testA() async throws {
try await assertTrue(eventually: a)
}
}
func assertTrue(
eventually operation: () async throws -> Bool,
_ message: @autoclosure () -> String = "",
file: StaticString = #filePath,
line: UInt = #line
) async throws {
try await after(operation, assert: { XCTAssertTrue($0, message(), file: file, line: line)})
}
func after<Value>(
_ operation: () async throws -> Value,
assert: (Value) throws -> Void
) async rethrows -> Void {
let value = try await operation()
try assert(value)
}2022.03.05
More followup discussion of the coordinator pattern and deep linking.
FileAccess Protocol and Actors
Put file access behind an abstraction:
protocol FileAccess {
func write(path: [String], data: Data) async throws
func read(path: [String]) async throws -> Data
func move(source: [String], destination: [String]) async throws
func copy(source: [String], destination: [String]) async throws
func enumerate(path: [String]) async throws -> AsyncStream<String>
func delete(path: [String]) async throws
func exists(path: [String]) async throws -> Bool
func createDirectory(path: [String]) async throws
}Then we can implement a concrete type:
actor NativeFileAccess: FileAccess {
enum Error: Swift.Error {
case couldNotEnumerate(String)
}
let root: URL
init() {
let path =
NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory,
.userDomainMask, true)[0]
root = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
}
func write(path: [String], data: Data) async throws {
try await Task {
try data.write(to: root.appending(components: path))
}.value
}
func read(path: [String]) async throws -> Data {
try await Task {
try Data(contentsOf: root.appending(components: path))
}.value
}
func enumerate(path: [String]) async throws -> AsyncStream<String> {
let location = root.appending(components: path)
guard let enumerator = FileManager.default.enumerator(atPath: location.path) else {
throw Error.couldNotEnumerate(location.absoluteString)
}
return AsyncStream(String.self) { continuation in
Task {
for element in enumerator {
guard let nsString = element as? NSString else { continue }
let file = String(nsString)
continuation.yield(file)
}
continuation.finish()
}
}
}
}
private extension URL {
func appending(components: [String]) -> URL {
components.reduce(self) { $0.appendingPathComponent($1) }
}
}And it can be tested:
import XCTest
@testable import FileAccess
class FileAccessTests: XCTestCase {
func checkThrows(method: () async throws -> Void) async {
do {
try await method()
} catch {
XCTFail("method throws")
}
}
func testRoundTrip() async throws {
let fileAccess = NativeFileAccess()
let payload = try XCTUnwrap("Hello".data(using: .utf8))
try await fileAccess.write(path: ["hello.txt"], data: payload)
let readback = try await fileAccess.read(path: ["hello.txt"])
XCTAssertEqual(readback, payload)
await checkThrows {
try await fileAccess.write(path: ["..", "..", "hello.txt"], data: payload)
}
// Alternate approach
let r = await Task { try await fileAccess.read(path: ["nope.txt"]) }.result
XCTAssertThrowsError(try r.get())
let files = try await fileAccess.enumerate(path: []).reduce(into: []) { $0.append($1) }
XCTAssertEqual(["hello.txt"], files)
}
}Unsafe Pointers
Josh gave a quick demo of unsafe pointers and unsafe buffer pointers.
2022.02.26
We talked about a variety of topics including app navigation, deep linking and coordinators.
Rainer gave a demo of UIKit debugging tool called chisel by Facebook.
2022.02.19
Rendering to pdf and printers
We discussed printing to pdf and printer contexts using:
- UIGraphicsPDFRendererContext: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uigraphicspdfrenderercontext
- UIPrintPageRenderer: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiprintpagerenderer
- UIPrinterPickerController: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiprinterpickercontroller
Leveling
We discussed leveling and compensation:
- https://medium.com/building-carta/engineering-levels-at-carta-d33db2a55a20
- www.levels.fyi
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RMSHYGG
- https://staffeng.com
Declarative Tests
Josh presented a project showing declarative testing: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/DeclarativeTests
2022.02.12
App Privacy
Discussion about app privacy and how there is now an option to turn on URL logging for apps under settings :: general :: privacy down at the bottom. You can also use a proxy to get at the urls and inspect the data.
Proxies:
Discussion about parental IT. Remote desktop via Facetime FTW.
Core Data and Testing
Continued work on https://github.com/rayfix/DatabaseFacade What we coded live is committed there.
Things we covered:
- actor basics
- The cost of making an actor conform to a protocol
- Type safe fetch requests
- Managing fetch request controller lifetimes
- Debugging concurrency issues with
-com.apple.CoreData.ConcurrencyDebug 1 - Writing unit tests
- Making persistent stores in-memory containers
- Unit testing core data
2022.02.05
Git and Git Ignore
Xcode has git integration that lets you look at pull requests. John has a problem with pagination and can only list up to "i" in his list of 89 repos.
Some other git clients:
- https://git-tower.com (@stuffmc's client of choice)
- https://gitup.co (Free, open source, works great on giant repos.)
- Sublime Merge
- Fork
- p4merge
- A text editor
Length side discussion about how git ignore files are processed. You can see what your global git settings are with git config --global -l
Here is John's .gitignore for Xcode projects:
https://github.com/jeradesign/0common/blob/main/gitignore_xcode_appcode
Reveal Followup
Rainer followed up with what Reveal shows for a SwiftUI app using the Stanford University card game project. It might not be all that useful for debugging SwiftUI but is interesting because it lets you see some of the private implementation.
Programmatically controlling UIScrollView
You are probably better off not swizzling the implementation but using the gesture recognizer delegate to resolve conflicts.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uigesturerecognizerdelegate
AttributedString
New in iOS 15 there is an attributed string class that you should know about.
Check out: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/attributedstring
The markdown interpreter that it supports is here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/attributedstring/markdownparsingoptions/interpretedsyntax
Aside. A cool markdown program is MacDown: https://macdown.uranusjr.com (It is free, open source MIT.)
Hacking Database Facade
Ray forked Josh's Database Facade project with an alternative (but very reusable?) approach. It has the big downside that it requires the client of the service to think about the lifetime of the watcher object rather than the service worrying about it. We started converting the service to an actor. We made it part of the way but it is finished in the forked version of the repo. The fork can be found here: https://github.com/rayfix/DatabaseFacade
Here is the basic idea WatchValues type:
import CoreData
import Combine
// Protocol to let you turn core data types into value types.
protocol ValueTypeConvertable {
associatedtype ValueType
func valueType() throws -> ValueType
}
// A private fetched results controller delegate that can publish
private final class FetchEngine<ValueType, CoreDataType>: NSObject, NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate where CoreDataType: ValueTypeConvertable, CoreDataType.ValueType == ValueType
{
private let controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>
weak var target: WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>?
init(fetchRequest: NSFetchRequest<NSFetchRequestResult>, context: NSManagedObjectContext) {
controller = NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>(fetchRequest: fetchRequest,
managedObjectContext: context,
sectionNameKeyPath: nil,
cacheName: nil)
super.init()
}
func start(target: WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>) {
self.target = target
controller.delegate = self
try? controller.performFetch()
}
private func transform(_ objects: [NSFetchRequestResult]) -> [ValueType] {
return objects
.compactMap { $0 as? CoreDataType }
.compactMap { try? $0.valueType() }
}
fileprivate
func controllerDidChangeContent(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>) {
guard let objects = controller.fetchedObjects else { return }
target?.results.send(transform(objects))
}
func initialValues() -> [ValueType] {
guard let results = try? controller.managedObjectContext.fetch(controller.fetchRequest) else {
return []
}
return transform(results)
}
}
final class WatchedCoreDataValues<ValueType, CoreDataType>: ObservableObject
where CoreDataType: ValueTypeConvertable, CoreDataType.ValueType == ValueType
{
var publisher: AnyPublisher<[ValueType], Never> {
return results
.prepend(fetcher.initialValues())
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
fileprivate let results = PassthroughSubject<[ValueType], Never>()
private let fetcher: FetchEngine<ValueType, CoreDataType>
init(fetchRequest: NSFetchRequest<NSFetchRequestResult>, context: NSManagedObjectContext) {
fetcher = FetchEngine(fetchRequest: fetchRequest, context: context)
fetcher.start(target: self)
}
}Having to main
2022.01.29
I forgot to capture the zoom chat log this week. Whoops. Topics included:
- Lots of new Versions of Swift coming (5.6, 5.7, ... 6.0)
- Bumping versions, John showed that Xcode has a checkbox to automatically bump version numbers
- Use a service layer with your MVVM
- App code
- Default View Models should be
@MainActor final class ObervableObject - Don't use @Published outside of View Models, just use an
AnyPublisherthat you can recieve on the Main thread. - Snow in Boston
Reveal
Rainer Standke demo'ed the Reveal app. Works best with UIKit and requires a framework that presumably does a lot of swizzling to make it work. It tends to be faster and more robust than the Xcode solution.
Force Directed Graph
We implemented the link drawing and dragging methods today.
let links = Path { drawing in
for link in viewModel.linkSegments() {
drawing.move(to: link.0)
drawing.addLine(to: link.1)
}
}
context.stroke(links, with: .color(white: 0.9),
lineWidth: viewModel.linkWidthModel)We talked about setting the transforms and being careful not to write to @Published from the canvas draw method. (It causes an assertion during rotation in this sample.)
A link to the repo: https://github.com/rayfix/ForceDirectedGraph
2022.01.22
Security Vulerability in Safari?
Bill was wondering about a recent vulnerability in Safari. John Brewer shared the following link: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/safari-and-ios-bug-reveals-your-browsing-activity-and-id-in-real-time/
iOS 15 Adoption
The age old question of what versions of iOS to support. If you are making a new app, you should strongly consider supporting only the latest OS. The decision should be guided by the specific audience however.
Some related links:
- https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/13/ios-15-installation-rates/
- https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_15
Becoming an Expert
This question comes up from time to time. Here are some suggestions in no particular order (Google for links):
- Attend these meetings and ask questions
- Pick a topic and learn everything you can about it - then present it!
- Advanced Swift by objc.io
- Functional Swift by objc.io
- The Stanford iOS course, updated every year, now with SwiftUI
- RayWenderlich.com
- 100 days of Swift, Hacking with Swift
- Read the Swift.org forums
Resistors!
John Brewer showed us his app for reading resistors!
Canvas and TimelineView Demo
Converting the ForceDirectedGraph app to use Canvas and TimelineView.
We implemented the node drawing:
struct GraphView: View {
@ObservedObject var viewModel: GraphViewModel
var body: some View {
TimelineView(.animation) { timeline in
Canvas { context, size in
viewModel.canvasSize = size
let _ = viewModel.updateSimulation()
print(timeline.date)
context.transform = viewModel.modelToView
for node in viewModel.graph.nodes {
let ellipse = viewModel.modelRect(node: node)
context.fill(Path(ellipseIn: ellipse), with: .color(Palette.color(for: node.group)))
}
}
}
}
}These rely on transforms that are computed in the view model when the canvas dimensions are known:
var canvasSize: CGSize = .zero {
didSet {
let minDimension = min(canvasSize.width, canvasSize.height)
modelToView = CGAffineTransform.identity
.translatedBy(x: (canvasSize.width - minDimension) * 0.5,
y: (canvasSize.height - minDimension) * 0.5)
.scaledBy(x: minDimension, y: minDimension)
viewToModel = modelToView.inverted()
}
}We need to make sure we are transformed into the correct spaces.
func modelRect(node: Node) -> CGRect {
let inset = -Constant.nodeSize / (modelToView.a * 2)
return CGRect(origin: node.position, size: .zero)
.insetBy(dx: inset, dy: inset)
}We will continue the discussion next week.
2022.01.15
Converting Combine to async/await
Continuing the example from last week, Josh converted the Magic app over to use async/await instead of a combine publisher. We could then compare and contrast the strenths and weaknesses of each approach. async/await has a much more imperative feel. For example debounce is a combine publisher and works just by calling that and remembering to switching to the latest publisher. By contast, with async/await, you have to spell it out Task.sleep(nanoseconds:) and a Task.cancel at the right place.
2022.01.08
Happy New Year! It was a first meeting of the year lots of people turned out.
Proposal Discussion: any
This proposal was accepted yesterday. It is a fairly simple syntax change but perhaps paves the way for more advanced automatic type erasure.
Here is the acceptance announcement with modifications.
Discussion: Performance Predictability
Ray guided a summary discussion on Joe Groff's forum post about expected improvements to the ARC programming model and performance predictability. The original post is here: https://forums.swift.org/
The walk-through presentation PerformanceRoadmapPitchSummary.
Privacy and App Submission
When you are submitting an app, you need to worry about third party dependencies (such as analytics and crash reporters) that phone home. You need to include those privacy policies in your submission.
You might wish to check your app using a proxy such as Charles or proxyman. https://proxyman.io
Manu wrote a book about privacy for app developers https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-4291-9
Modern SwiftUI Magic
Josh revisited an old SwiftUI project (searching cards from the game Magic) from years ago and looked to modernize it. Some things we did:
- Use
AsyncImageremoving an entire package dependency. - Use
LazyVGridinside aScrollViewinstead ofList - Use
searchableview modifier (inside aNavigationView) instead of doing something custom.
These changes make the user interface look great on different size devices including iPads and Macs.
The original repo is here: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Magic-Browser-SwiftUI
We looked at how the app uses Combine in the view model to map search terms to a publisher of Card types. Next week Josh will show how this can be updated to the new async/await world.
