How to use Any in Codable Type

Question

I\'m currently working with Codable types in my project and facing an issue.

struct Person: Codable
{
    var id: Any
}

Answer 1

I solved this issue defining a new Decodable Struct called AnyDecodable, so instead of Any I use AnyDecodable. It works perfectly also with nested types.

Try this in a playground:

var json = """
{
  "id": 12345,
  "name": "Giuseppe",
  "last_name": "Lanza",
  "age": 31,
  "happy": true,
  "rate": 1.5,
  "classes": ["maths", "phisics"],
  "dogs": [
    {
      "name": "Gala",
      "age": 1
    }, {
      "name": "Aria",
      "age": 3
    }
  ]
}
"""

public struct AnyDecodable: Decodable {
  public var value: Any

  private struct CodingKeys: CodingKey {
    var stringValue: String
    var intValue: Int?
    init?(intValue: Int) {
      self.stringValue = "\(intValue)"
      self.intValue = intValue
    }
    init?(stringValue: String) { self.stringValue = stringValue }
  }

  public init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    if let container = try? decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self) {
      var result = [String: Any]()
      try container.allKeys.forEach { (key) throws in
        result[key.stringValue] = try container.decode(AnyDecodable.self, forKey: key).value
      }
      value = result
    } else if var container = try? decoder.unkeyedContainer() {
      var result = [Any]()
      while !container.isAtEnd {
        result.append(try container.decode(AnyDecodable.self).value)
      }
      value = result
    } else if let container = try? decoder.singleValueContainer() {
      if let intVal = try? container.decode(Int.self) {
        value = intVal
      } else if let doubleVal = try? container.decode(Double.self) {
        value = doubleVal
      } else if let boolVal = try? container.decode(Bool.self) {
        value = boolVal
      } else if let stringVal = try? container.decode(String.self) {
        value = stringVal
      } else {
        throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(in: container, debugDescription: "the container contains nothing serialisable")
      }
    } else {
      throw DecodingError.dataCorrupted(DecodingError.Context(codingPath: decoder.codingPath, debugDescription: "Could not serialise"))
    }
  }
}

let stud = try! JSONDecoder().decode(AnyDecodable.self, from: jsonData).value as! [String: Any]
print(stud)

You could extend my struct to be AnyCodable if you are interested also in the Encoding part.

Edit: I actually did it.

Here is AnyCodable

struct AnyCodable: Decodable {
  var value: Any

  struct CodingKeys: CodingKey {
    var stringValue: String
    var intValue: Int?
    init?(intValue: Int) {
      self.stringValue = "\(intValue)"
      self.intValue = intValue
    }
    init?(stringValue: String) { self.stringValue = stringValue }
  }

  init(value: Any) {
    self.value = value
  }

  init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
    if let container = try? decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self) {
      var result = [String: Any]()
      try container.allKeys.forEach { (key) throws in
        result[key.stringValue] = try container.decode(AnyCodable.self, forKey: key).value
      }
      value = result
    } else if var container = try? decoder.unkeyedContainer() {
      var result = [Any]()
      while !container.isAtEnd {
        result.append(try container.decode(AnyCodable.self).value)
      }
      value = result
    } else if let container = try? decoder.singleValueContainer() {
      if let intVal = try? container.decode(Int.self) {
        value = intVal
      } else if let doubleVal = try? container.decode(Double.self) {
        value = doubleVal
      } else if let boolVal = try? container.decode(Bool.self) {
        value = boolVal
      } else if let stringVal = try? container.decode(String.self) {
        value = stringVal
      } else {
        throw DecodingError.dataCorruptedError(in: container, debugDescription: "the container contains nothing serialisable")
      }
    } else {
      throw DecodingError.dataCorrupted(DecodingError.Context(codingPath: decoder.codingPath, debugDescription: "Could not serialise"))
    }
  }
}

extension AnyCodable: Encodable {
  func encode(to encoder: Encoder) throws {
    if let array = value as? [Any] {
      var container = encoder.unkeyedContainer()
      for value in array {
        let decodable = AnyCodable(value: value)
        try container.encode(decodable)
      }
    } else if let dictionary = value as? [String: Any] {
      var container = encoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
      for (key, value) in dictionary {
        let codingKey = CodingKeys(stringValue: key)!
        let decodable = AnyCodable(value: value)
        try container.encode(decodable, forKey: codingKey)
      }
    } else {
      var container = encoder.singleValueContainer()
      if let intVal = value as? Int {
        try container.encode(intVal)
      } else if let doubleVal = value as? Double {
        try container.encode(doubleVal)
      } else if let boolVal = value as? Bool {
        try container.encode(boolVal)
      } else if let stringVal = value as? String {
        try container.encode(stringVal)
      } else {
        throw EncodingError.invalidValue(value, EncodingError.Context.init(codingPath: [], debugDescription: "The value is not encodable"))
      }

    }
  }
}

You can test it With the previous json in this way in a playground:

let stud = try! JSONDecoder().decode(AnyCodable.self, from: jsonData)
print(stud.value as! [String: Any])

let backToJson = try! JSONEncoder().encode(stud)
let jsonString = String(bytes: backToJson, encoding: .utf8)!

print(jsonString)

Answer 2

Thanks to Luka Angeletti's answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/48388443/7057338) i've changed enum to struct so we can use it more easily

struct QuantumValue: Codable {

    public var string: String?
    public var integer: Int?

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let container = try decoder.singleValueContainer()
        if let int = try? container.decode(Int.self) {
            self.integer = int
            return
        }
        if let string = try? container.decode(String.self) {
            self.string = string
            return
        }
        throw QuantumError.missingValue
    }

    func encode(to encoder: Encoder) throws {
        var container = encoder.singleValueContainer()
        try container.encode(string)
        try container.encode(integer)
    }

    enum QuantumError: Error {
         case missingValue
    }

    func value() -> Any? {
        if let s = string {
            return s
        }
        if let i = integer {
            return i
        }
        return nil
    }
}

Answer 3

If your problem is that it's uncertain the type of id as it might be either a string or an integer value, I can suggest you this blog post: http://agostini.tech/2017/11/12/swift-4-codable-in-real-life-part-2/

Basically I defined a new Decodable type

public struct UncertainValue<T: Decodable, U: Decodable>: Decodable {
    public var tValue: T?
    public var uValue: U?

    public var value: Any? {
        return tValue ?? uValue
    }

    public init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let container = try decoder.singleValueContainer()
        tValue = try? container.decode(T.self)
        uValue = try? container.decode(U.self)
        if tValue == nil && uValue == nil {
            //Type mismatch
            throw DecodingError.typeMismatch(type(of: self), DecodingError.Context(codingPath: [], debugDescription: "The value is not of type \(T.self) and not even \(U.self)"))
        }

    }
}

From now on, your Person object would be

struct Person: Decodable {
    var id: UncertainValue<Int, String>
}

you will be able to access your id using id.value

Answer 4

Codable needs to know the type to cast to.

Firstly I would try to address the issue of not knowing the type, see if you can fix that and make it simpler.

Otherwise the only way I can think of solving your issue currently is to use generics like below.

struct Person<T> {
    var id: T
    var name: String
}

let person1 = Person<Int>(id: 1, name: "John")
let person2 = Person<String>(id: "two", name: "Steve")

Answer 5

You can replace Any with an enum accepting an Int or a String:

enum Id: Codable {
    case numeric(value: Int)
    case named(name: String)
}

struct Person: Codable
{
    var id: Id
}

Then the compiler will complain about the fact that Id does not conform to Decodable. Because Id has associated values you need to implement this yourself. Read https://littlebitesofcocoa.com/318-codable-enums for an example of how to do this.

Answer 6

Quantum Value

First of all you can define a type that can be decoded both from a String and Int value. Here it is.

enum QuantumValue: Decodable {
    
    case int(Int), string(String)
    
    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        if let int = try? decoder.singleValueContainer().decode(Int.self) {
            self = .int(int)
            return
        }
        
        if let string = try? decoder.singleValueContainer().decode(String.self) {
            self = .string(string)
            return
        }
        
        throw QuantumError.missingValue
    }
    
    enum QuantumError:Error {
        case missingValue
    }
}

Person

Now you can define your struct like this

struct Person: Decodable {
    let id: QuantumValue
}

That's it. Let's test it!

JSON 1: id is String

let data = """
{
"id": "123"
}
""".data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)!

if let person = try? JSONDecoder().decode(Person.self, from: data) {
    print(person)
}

JSON 2: id is Int

let data = """
{
"id": 123
}
""".data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)!

if let person = try? JSONDecoder().decode(Person.self, from: data) {
    print(person)
}

UPDATE 1 Comparing values

This new paragraph should answer the questions from the comments.

If you want to compare a quantum value to an Int you must keep in mind that a quantum value could contain an Int or a String.

So the question is: what does it mean comparing a String and an Int?

If you are just looking for a way of converting a quantum value into an Int then you can simply add this extension

extension QuantumValue {
    
    var intValue: Int? {
        switch self {
        case .int(let value): return value
        case .string(let value): return Int(value)
        }
    }
}

Now you can write

let quantumValue: QuantumValue: ...
quantumValue.intValue == 123

UPDATE 2

This part to answer the comment left by @Abrcd18.

You can add this computed property to the Person struct.

var idAsString: String {
    switch id {
    case .string(let string): return string
    case .int(let int): return String(int)
    }
}

And now to populate the label just write

label.text = person.idAsString

Hope it helps.