iOS RxSwift how to connect Core bluetooth to Rx se

Question

I'm trying to create an observable sequence to indicate the status of Bluetooth on device. I'm using ReplaySubject<CBManagerState>, but am curious if there is something better, as I hear bad things about using onNext()

What is the appropriate way to connect callback delegates to the RxSwift observable domain?

class BluetoothStatusMonitor: NSObject, CBPeripheralManagerDelegate {
let bluetoothStatusSequence = ReplaySubject<CBManagerState>.create(bufferSize: 1)

var bluetoothPeripheralManager: CBPeripheralManager?

    func checkBluetoothStatus()
    {
        //silently check permissions, without alert

        let options = [CBCentralManagerOptionShowPowerAlertKey:0]
        bluetoothPeripheralManager = CBPeripheralManager(delegate: self, queue: nil, options: options)

    }
    func peripheralManagerDidUpdateState(_ peripheral: CBPeripheralManager) {

        bluetoothStatusSequence.onNext(peripheral.state)
    }
}

Answer 1

This is exactly the kind of things that Subjects are good for. They exist primarily to convert non-Rx code into Rx code. That said, RxCocoa has the DelegateProxy type that is designed to handle a lot of the work necessary to do delegates right. It's still hard to figure out exactly how to implement one, but once you get the hang of it they are quite useful...

I have to admit that most of the code is black magic to me, but it does work. I try to explain as much as I can in comments below.

import RxSwift
import RxCocoa
import CoreBluetooth

    // The HasDelegate protocol is an associated type for the DelegateProxyType
extension CBPeripheralManager: HasDelegate {
    public typealias Delegate = CBPeripheralManagerDelegate
}

class CBPeripheralManagerDelegateProxy
    : DelegateProxy<CBPeripheralManager, CBPeripheralManagerDelegate>
    , DelegateProxyType
    , CBPeripheralManagerDelegate {

    init(parentObject: CBPeripheralManager) {
        super.init(parentObject: parentObject, delegateProxy: CBPeripheralManagerDelegateProxy.self)
    }

    deinit {
        _didUpdateState.onCompleted()
    }

    static func registerKnownImplementations() {
        register { CBPeripheralManagerDelegateProxy(parentObject: $0) }
    }

        // a couple of static functions for getting and setting a delegate on the object.
    static func currentDelegate(for object: CBPeripheralManager) -> CBPeripheralManagerDelegate? {
        return object.delegate
    }

    static func setCurrentDelegate(_ delegate: CBPeripheralManagerDelegate?, to object: CBPeripheralManager) {
        object.delegate = delegate
    }

        // required delegate functions must be implemented in the class. This is where Subjects come in.
    func peripheralManagerDidUpdateState(_ peripheral: CBPeripheralManager) {
        _didUpdateState.onNext(peripheral.state)
    }

    fileprivate let _didUpdateState = PublishSubject<CBManagerState>()
}

extension Reactive where Base: CBPeripheralManager {
    var delegate: CBPeripheralManagerDelegateProxy {
        return CBPeripheralManagerDelegateProxy.proxy(for: base)
    }

    var state: Observable<CBManagerState> {
        return delegate._didUpdateState
    }

    var didUpdateState: Observable<Void> {
        return delegate._didUpdateState.map { _ in }
    }

        // optional methods are setup using the `methodInvoked` function on the delegate
    var willRestoreState: Observable<[String: Any]> {
        return delegate.methodInvoked(#selector(CBPeripheralManagerDelegate.peripheralManager(_:willRestoreState:)))
            .map { $0[1] as! [String: Any] }
    }

    var didStartAdvertising: Observable<Error?> {
        return delegate.methodInvoked(#selector(CBPeripheralManagerDelegate.peripheralManagerDidStartAdvertising(_:error:)))
            .map { $0[1] as? Error }
    }

    // I didn't implement all of the optionals. Use the above as a template to implement the rest.
}

As far as I can tell, the methodInvoked function performs some meta-programming magic on the object to install the method at runtime. This is done because many of the iOS classes that have delegates actually behave differently depending on whether or not the method was defined on the delegate (regardless of what the method does,) so we don't want to simply give the proxy every method in the protocol.

Of course, once you have the above in place. You can do all the standard RX stuff with your peripheral manager:

bluetoothManager.rx.state
    .subscribe(onNext: { state in print("current state:", state) })
    .disposed(by: disposeBag)

bluetoothManager.rx.didStartAdvertising
    .subscribe(onNext: { error in
        if let error = error {
            print("there was an error:", error)
        }
    }
    .disposed(by: disposeBag)