How can I implement polymorphic decoding of JSON data in Swift 4?

Question

I am attempting to render a view from data returned from an API endpoint. My JSON looks (roughly) like this:

{
  \"sections\": [
    {
      \"title\": \"Feature         


        

Answer 1

I recommend you to be judicious on the use of Codable. If you only want to decode a type from JSON and not encode it, conforming it to Decodable alone is enough. And since you have already discovered that you need to decode it manually (via a custom implementation of init(from decoder: Decoder)), the question becomes: what is the least painful way to do it?

First, the data model. Note that ViewLayoutSectionItemable and its adopters do not conform to Decodable:

enum ItemType: String, Decodable {
    case foo
    case bar
}

protocol ViewLayoutSectionItemable {
    var id: Int { get }
    var itemType: ItemType { get }
    var title: String { get set }
    var imageURL: URL { get set }
}

struct Foo: ViewLayoutSectionItemable {
    let id: Int
    let itemType: ItemType
    var title: String
    var imageURL: URL
    // Custom properties of Foo
    var audioURL: URL
}

struct Bar: ViewLayoutSectionItemable {
    let id: Int
    let itemType: ItemType
    var title: String
    var imageURL: URL
    // Custom properties of Bar
    var videoURL: URL
    var director: String
}

Next, here's how we will decode the JSON:

struct Sections: Decodable {
    var sections: [ViewLayoutSection]
}

struct ViewLayoutSection: Decodable {
    var title: String = ""
    var sectionLayoutType: String
    var sectionItems: [ViewLayoutSectionItemable] = []

    // This struct use snake_case to match the JSON so we don't have to provide a custom
    // CodingKeys enum. And since it's private, outside code will never see it
    private struct GenericItem: Decodable {
        let id: Int
        let item_type: ItemType
        var title: String
        var feature_image_url: URL
        // Custom properties of all possible types. Note that they are all optionals
        var audio_url: URL?
        var video_url: URL?
        var director: String?
    }

    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
        case title
        case sectionLayoutType = "section_layout_type"
        case sectionItems = "section_items"
    }

    public init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let container     = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        title             = try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .title)
        sectionLayoutType = try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .sectionLayoutType)
        sectionItems      = try container.decode([GenericItem].self, forKey: .sectionItems).map { item in
        switch item.item_type {
        case .foo:
            // It's OK to force unwrap here because we already
            // know what type the item object is
            return Foo(id: item.id, itemType: item.item_type, title: item.title, imageURL: item.feature_image_url, audioURL: item.audio_url!)
        case .bar:
            return Bar(id: item.id, itemType: item.item_type, title: item.title, imageURL: item.feature_image_url, videoURL: item.video_url!, director: item.director!)
        }
    }
}

Usage:

let sections = try JSONDecoder().decode(Sections.self, from: json).sections