With JSONDecoder in Swift 4, can missing keys use

问题:

Swift 4 added the new Codeable protocol. When I use JSONDecoder it seems to require all the non-optional properties of my Codeable class to have keys in the JSON or it throws an error.

Making every property of my class optional seems like an unecessary hassle since what I really want is to use the value in the json or a default value. (I don't want the property to be nil.)

Is there a way to do this?

class MyCodable: Codable {
    var name: String = "Default Appleseed"
}

func load(input: String) {
    do {
        if let data = input.data(using: .utf8) {
            let result = try JSONDecoder().decode(MyCodable.self, from: data)
            print("name: \(result.name)")
        }
    } catch  {
        print("error: \(error)")
        // `Error message: "Key not found when expecting non-optional type
        // String for coding key \"name\""`
    }
}

let goodInput = "{\"name\": \"Jonny Appleseed\" }"
let badInput = "{}"
load(input: goodInput) // works, `name` is Jonny Applessed
load(input: badInput) // breaks, `name` required since property is non-optional

回答1:

You can implement the init(from decoder: Decoder) method in your type instead of using the default implementation:

class MyCodable: Codable {
    var name: String = "Default Appleseed"

    required init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        if let name = try container.decodeIfPresent(String.self, forKey: .name) {
            self.name = name
        }
    }
}

You can also make name a constant property (if you want to):

class MyCodable: Codable {
    let name: String

    required init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        if let name = try container.decodeIfPresent(String.self, forKey: .name) {
            self.name = name
        } else {
            self.name = "Default Appleseed"
        }
    }
}

or

required init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
    self.name = try container.decodeIfPresent(String.self, forKey: .name) ?? "Default Appleseed"
}

Re your comment: With a custom extension

extension KeyedDecodingContainer {
    func decodeWrapper<T>(key: K, defaultValue: T) throws -> T
        where T : Decodable {
        return try decodeIfPresent(T.self, forKey: key) ?? defaultValue
    }
}

you could implement the init method as

required init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
    self.name = try container.decodeWrapper(key: .name, defaultValue: "Default Appleseed")
}

but that is not much shorter than

    self.name = try container.decodeIfPresent(String.self, forKey: .name) ?? "Default Appleseed"

回答2:

If you think that writing your own version of init(from decoder: Decoder) is overwhelming, I would advice you to implement a method which will check the input before sending it to decoder. That way you'll have a place where you can check for fields absence and set your own default values.

For example:

final class CodableModel: Codable
{
    static func customDecode(_ obj: [String: Any]) -> CodableModel?
    {
        var validatedDict = obj
        let someField = validatedDict[CodingKeys.someField.stringValue] ?? false
        validatedDict[CodingKeys.someField.stringValue] = someField

        guard
            let data = try? JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: validatedDict, options: .prettyPrinted),
            let model = try? CodableModel.decoder.decode(CodableModel.self, from: data) else {
                return nil
        }

        return model
    }

    //your coding keys, properties, etc.
}

And in order to init an object from json, instead of:

do {
    let data = try JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: json, options: .prettyPrinted)
    let model = try CodableModel.decoder.decode(CodableModel.self, from: data)                        
} catch {
    assertionFailure(error.localizedDescription)
}

Init will look like this:

if let vuvVideoFile = PublicVideoFile.customDecode($0) {
    videos.append(vuvVideoFile)
}

In this particular situation I prefer to deal with optionals but if you have a different opinion, you can make your customDecode(:) method throwable