How do I make an enum Decodable in swift 4?

Question

enum PostType: Decodable {

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {

        // What do i put here?
    }

    case Image
    enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
          


        

Answer 1

How to make enums with associated types conform to Codable

This answer is similar to @Howard Lovatt's but avoids creating a PostTypeCodableForm struct and instead uses the KeyedEncodingContainer type provided by Apple as a property on Encoder and Decoder, which reduces boilerplate.

enum PostType: Codable {
    case count(number: Int)
    case title(String)
}

extension PostType {

    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
        case count
        case title
    }

    enum PostTypeCodingError: Error {
        case decoding(String)
    }

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        if let value = try? values.decode(Int.self, forKey: .count) {
            self = .count(number: value)
            return
        }
        if let value = try? values.decode(String.self, forKey: .title) {
            self = .title(value)
            return
        }
        throw PostTypeCodingError.decoding("Whoops! \(dump(values))")
    }

    func encode(to encoder: Encoder) throws {
        var container = encoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        switch self {
        case .count(let number):
            try container.encode(number, forKey: .count)
        case .title(let value):
            try container.encode(value, forKey: .title)
        }
    }
}

This code works for me on Xcode 9b3.

import Foundation // Needed for JSONEncoder/JSONDecoder

let encoder = JSONEncoder()
encoder.outputFormatting = .prettyPrinted
let decoder = JSONDecoder()

let count = PostType.count(number: 42)
let countData = try encoder.encode(count)
let countJSON = String.init(data: countData, encoding: .utf8)!
print(countJSON)
//    {
//      "count" : 42
//    }

let decodedCount = try decoder.decode(PostType.self, from: countData)

let title = PostType.title("Hello, World!")
let titleData = try encoder.encode(title)
let titleJSON = String.init(data: titleData, encoding: .utf8)!
print(titleJSON)
//    {
//        "title": "Hello, World!"
//    }
let decodedTitle = try decoder.decode(PostType.self, from: titleData)

Answer 2

It's pretty easy, just use String or Int raw values which are implicitly assigned.

enum PostType: Int, Codable {
    case image, blob
}

image is encoded to 0 and blob to 1

Or

enum PostType: String, Codable {
    case image, blob
}

image is encoded to "image" and blob to "blob"

---

This is a simple example how to use it:

enum PostType : Int, Codable {
    case count = 4
}

struct Post : Codable {
    var type : PostType
}

let jsonString = "{\"type\": 4}"

let jsonData = Data(jsonString.utf8)

do {
    let decoded = try JSONDecoder().decode(Post.self, from: jsonData)
    print("decoded:", decoded.type)
} catch {
    print(error)
}

Answer 3

Actually the answers above are really great, but they are missing some details for what many people need in a continuously developed client/server project. We develop an app while our backend continually evolves over time, which means some enum cases will change that evolution. So we need an enum decoding strategy that is able to decode arrays of enums that contain unknown cases. Otherwise decoding the object that contains the array simply fails.

What I did is quite simple:

enum Direction: String, Decodable {
    case north, south, east, west
}

struct DirectionList {
   let directions: [Direction]
}

extension DirectionList: Decodable {

    public init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {

        var container = try decoder.unkeyedContainer()

        var directions: [Direction] = []

        while !container.isAtEnd {

            // Here we just decode the string from the JSON which always works as long as the array element is a string
            let rawValue = try container.decode(String.self)

            guard let direction = Direction(rawValue: rawValue) else {
                // Unknown enum value found - ignore, print error to console or log error to analytics service so you'll always know that there are apps out which cannot decode enum cases!
                continue
            }
            // Add all known enum cases to the list of directions
            directions.append(direction)
        }
        self.directions = directions
    }
}

Bonus: Hide implementation > Make it a Collection

To hide implementation detail is always a good idea. For this you'll need just a little bit more code. The trick is to conform DirectionsList to Collection and make your internal list array private:

struct DirectionList {

    typealias ArrayType = [Direction]

    private let directions: ArrayType
}

extension DirectionList: Collection {

    typealias Index = ArrayType.Index
    typealias Element = ArrayType.Element

    // The upper and lower bounds of the collection, used in iterations
    var startIndex: Index { return directions.startIndex }
    var endIndex: Index { return directions.endIndex }

    // Required subscript, based on a dictionary index
    subscript(index: Index) -> Element {
        get { return directions[index] }
    }

    // Method that returns the next index when iterating
    func index(after i: Index) -> Index {
        return directions.index(after: i)
    }
}

You can read more about conforming to custom collections in this blog post by John Sundell: https://medium.com/@johnsundell/creating-custom-collections-in-swift-a344e25d0bb0

Answer 4

You can do what you want, but it is a bit involved :(

import Foundation

enum PostType: Codable {
    case count(number: Int)
    case comment(text: String)

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        self = try PostTypeCodableForm(from: decoder).enumForm()
    }

    func encode(to encoder: Encoder) throws {
        try PostTypeCodableForm(self).encode(to: encoder)
    }
}

struct PostTypeCodableForm: Codable {
    // All fields must be optional!
    var countNumber: Int?
    var commentText: String?

    init(_ enumForm: PostType) {
        switch enumForm {
        case .count(let number):
            countNumber = number
        case .comment(let text):
            commentText = text
        }
    }

    func enumForm() throws -> PostType {
        if let number = countNumber {
            guard commentText == nil else {
                throw DecodeError.moreThanOneEnumCase
            }
            return .count(number: number)
        }
        if let text = commentText {
            guard countNumber == nil else {
                throw DecodeError.moreThanOneEnumCase
            }
            return .comment(text: text)
        }
        throw DecodeError.noRecognizedContent
    }

    enum DecodeError: Error {
        case noRecognizedContent
        case moreThanOneEnumCase
    }
}

let test = PostType.count(number: 3)
let data = try JSONEncoder().encode(test)
let string = String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)!
print(string) // {"countNumber":3}
let result = try JSONDecoder().decode(PostType.self, from: data)
print(result) // count(3)

Answer 5

A variant of @proxpero's response that is terser would be to formulate the decoder as:

public init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
    guard let key = values.allKeys.first else { throw err("No valid keys in: \(values)") }
    func dec<T: Decodable>() throws -> T { return try values.decode(T.self, forKey: key) }

    switch key {
    case .count: self = try .count(dec())
    case .title: self = try .title(dec())
    }
}

func encode(to encoder: Encoder) throws {
    var container = encoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
    switch self {
    case .count(let x): try container.encode(x, forKey: .count)
    case .title(let x): try container.encode(x, forKey: .title)
    }
}

This permits the compiler to exhaustively verify the cases, and also doesn't suppress the error message for the case where the encoded value doesn't match the key's expected value.

Answer 6

To extend on @Toka's answer, you may too add a raw representable value to the enum, and use the default optional constructor to build the enum without a switch:

enum MediaType: String, Decodable {
  case audio = "AUDIO"
  case multipleChoice = "MULTIPLE_CHOICES"
  case other

  init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    let label = try decoder.singleValueContainer().decode(String.self)
    self = MediaType(rawValue: label) ?? .other
  }
}

It may be extended using a custom protocol that allows to refactor the constructor:

protocol EnumDecodable: RawRepresentable, Decodable {
  static var defaultDecoderValue: Self { get }
}

extension EnumDecodable where RawValue: Decodable {
  init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    let value = try decoder.singleValueContainer().decode(RawValue.self)
    self = Self(rawValue: value) ?? Self.defaultDecoderValue
  }
}

enum MediaType: String, EnumDecodable {
  static let defaultDecoderValue: MediaType = .other

  case audio = "AUDIO"
  case multipleChoices = "MULTIPLE_CHOICES"
  case other
}

It can also be easily extended for throwing an error if an invalid enum value was specified, rather than defaulting on a value. Gist with this change is available here: https://gist.github.com/stephanecopin/4283175fabf6f0cdaf87fef2a00c8128.
The code was compiled and tested using Swift 4.1/Xcode 9.3.