Protocol-Oriented JSON in Swift
Previously we explored how to use Swift’s amazing type system to simplify our JSON code. We came up with a solution that was concise, without building a complicated tree of JSON enums, using crazy operators, or getting deep into reflection. And we did it all in 100-some-odd lines of code.
Today we’re going to use protocol-oriented programming to take it even further.
Last time we created our own class, JSONObject, to encapsulate a JSON dictionary and to hold our valueForKey family of helpers. This encapsulation had several benefits, however, it also came with the baggage of having to constantly wrap our basic [String:AnyObject] JSON dictionaries. This can become especially tedious when we have nested JSON objects we want to extract.
This time let’s use the power of protocols in Swift to extend Dictionary. Of course, we don’t want to extend all instances of Dictionary, just the instances that look like [String:AnyObject].
JSON Keys
Although Swift allows us to restrict extensions on generic types, it only allows us to restrict the types based on protocols. Thus, we need a protocol to describe our Key type.
public protocol JSONKeyType: Hashable {
var stringValue: String { get }
}
extension String: JSONKeyType {
public var stringValue: String {
return self
}
}We’ll never make anything other than String conform to JSONKeyType. It’s a little bit of a work around, but it will allow us do this:
extension Dictionary where Key: JSONKeyType {
// functions available only on instances where Key is a String
}JSON Values
We defined a protocol for our key type, so let’s define a protocol for our value type.
public protocol JSONValueType {
typealias _JSONValue = Self
static func JSONValue(object: Any) throws -> _JSONValue
}In order for a type to conform to JSONValueType, it must implement a function that constructs itself given an Any, or throw an error if it can’t. The typealias is there to help the compiler out with some of the things we’ll do later.
Many of the types we’ll be dealing with are directly bridgeable from their Any counterpart. We can extend the JSONValueType protocol to provide a default implementation for these cases, then simply add conformance to said types.
extension JSONValueType {
public static func JSONValue(object: Any) throws -> _JSONValue {
guard let objectValue = object as? _JSONValue else {
throw JSONError.TypeMismatch(expected: JSONValue.self,
actual: object.dynamicType)
}
return objectValue
}
}
extension String: JSONValueType {}
extension Int: JSONValueType {}
extension UInt: JSONValueType {}
extension Float: JSONValueType {}
extension Double: JSONValueType {}
extension Bool: JSONValueType {}Et voila!
If there are other types we wish to extract from our JSON, we can add conformance to JSONValueType for them as well.
extension NSURL: JSONValueType {
public static func JSONValue(object: Any) throws -> NSURL {
guard let urlString = object as? String,
objectValue = NSURL(string: urlString) else {
throw JSONError.TypeMismatch(expected: self,
actual: object.dynamicType)
}
return objectValue
}
}This extension allows us to extract NSURLs when the Any is a valid URL string. We can write similar extension for NSDate, and even Array and Dictionary. (You can find implementations for the last two in the gist. I have not included an NSDate implementation because of the plethora of date-time representations, but writing your own for your specific should be straightforward.)
Extending Dictionary
Now to the heart of the matter: actually extending Dictionary.
extension Dictionary where Key: JSONKeyType {
private func anyForKey(key: Key) throws -> Any {
let pathComponents = key.stringValue.characters
.split(".").map(String.init)
var accumulator: Any = self
for component in pathComponents {
if let componentData = accumulator as? [Key: Value],
value = componentData[component as! Key] {
accumulator = value
continue
}
throw JSONError.KeyNotFound(key: key)
}
return accumulator
}
public func JSONValueForKey<A: JSONValueType>(key: Key) throws -> A {
let any = try anyForKey(key)
guard let result = try A.JSONValue(any) as? A else {
throw JSONError.TypeMismatchWithKey(key: key,
expected: A.self,
actual: any.dynamicType)
}
if let _ = result as? NSNull {
throw JSONError.NullValue(key: key)
}
return result
}
public func JSONValueForKey<A: JSONValueType>(key: Key) throws -> [A] {
let any = try anyForKey(key)
return try Array<A>.JSONValue(any)
}
public func JSONValueForKey<A: JSONValueType>(key: Key) throws -> A? {
do {
return try self.JSONValueForKey(key) as A
}
catch JSONError.KeyNotFound {
return nil
}
catch JSONError.NullValue {
return nil
}
catch {
throw error
}
}
}This should look mostly familiar if you followed along with Part 2. What’s new is us restricting A to conform to JSONValueType. Now it is impossible for us to try and extract a value from our JSON and shove it into a non-JSONValueType conforming box. For example:
// the old way let this compile
let firstName: UILabel = json.valueForKey("first_name")With our code in Part 2, this code would compile, even though we would likely figure it out down the road when we tried to use firstName. The fact that A must be a JSONValueType gives us a little bit more safety here.
Some more changes that have been made are to consolidate the public API to just one function signature: JSONValueForKey. The compiler will figure out which version of the function to call based off of the type it is being assigned to—be it a plain ol’ A, optional A?, or even an array of [A]! (The latter requires Array to conform to JSONValueType. You can find this in the gist).
Finally, use the power of typealias to make it more clear what we’re talking about when dealing with our JSON dictionaries.
public typealias JSONObject = [String: AnyObject]And now your JSON code can look like this:
var json: JSONObject = ["url": "http://apple.com", "foo": (2 as NSNumber), "str": "Hello, World!", "array": [1,2,3,4,7], "object": ["foo": (3 as NSNumber), "str": "Hello, World!"], "bool": (true as NSNumber)]
do {
var str: String = try json.JSONValueForKey("str")
var foo2: Int = try json.JSONValueForKey("foo")
var foo3: Int? = try json.JSONValueForKey("foo")
var foo4: Int? = try json.JSONValueForKey("bar")
var arr: [Int] = try json.JSONValueForKey("array")
var obj: JSONObject? = try json.JSONValueForKey("object")
let innerfoo: Int = try obj!.JSONValueForKey("foo")
let innerfoo2: Int = try json.JSONValueForKey("object.foo")
let bool: Bool = try json.JSONValueForKey("bool")
let url: NSURL = try json.JSONValueForKey("url")
}
catch {
// ...
}You can find the full code in this gist, and most likely in a more permanent Github repo home soon.
Please share this if you like it and leave me feedback below in the comments or on the twitters @jarsen!
I hope this makes Crusty proud.
A special thanks to a bunch of local Utah iOS developers who have been working on this and giving lots of great ideas, especially: Bart Whiteley, Brian Mullen, BJ Homer, Derrick Hathaway, Dave DeLong, Mark Schultz and Tim Shadel.
