Core Data and SwiftUI polymorphism issues

Question

Having troubles putting down together SwiftUI and generic types for handling Core Data.

Consider following example:

Parent is abstract. Foo and Bar are children of Parent and they have some custom attributes.

Now what I want to do, is roughly that:

protocol EntityWithView {
    associatedtype T: View
    func buildView() -> T
}

extension Parent: EntityWithView {
    func buildView() -> some View {
        fatalError("Re-implement in child")
    }
}

extension Foo {
    override func buildView() -> some View {
        return Text(footribute)
    }
}

extension Bar {
    override func buildView() -> some View {
        return Text(atrribar)
    }
}

struct ViewThatUsesCoreDataAsModel: View {
    let entities: [Parent]

    var body: some View {
        ForEach(entities) { entity in
            entity.buildView()
        }
    }
}

I would want to add polymorphic builder to my core data entities that shape data or build views, that confirm to common interface so I can use them without casting/typing.

Problem that compiler throws errors if I try to modify generated Core data entity directly not through extension, and confirming to protocol though extension doesn't allow overriding.

Asperi Asperi · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-06T19:43:54

Ok, this is head-breaking (at least for Preview, which gone crazy), but it works in run-time. Tested with Xcode 11.4 / iOS 13.4.

As we need to do all in extension the idea is to use dispatching via Obj-C messaging, the one actually available pass to override implementation under such requirements.

Note: use Simulator or Device

Complete test module

protocol EntityWithView {
    associatedtype T: View
    var buildView: T { get }
}

extension Parent {
    // allows to use Objective-C run-time messaging by complete
    // type erasing.
    // By convention subclasses
    @objc func generateView() -> Any {
        AnyView(EmptyView()) // << safe
        //fatalError("stub in base") // << alternate
    }
}

extension Parent: EntityWithView {
    var buildView: some View {
        // restory SwiftUI view type from dispatched message
        guard let view = self.generateView() as? AnyView else {
            fatalError("Dev error - subview must generate AnyView")
        }
        return view
    }
}

extension Foo {
    @objc override func generateView() -> Any {
        AnyView(Text(footribute ?? ""))
    }
}

extension Bar {
    @objc override func generateView() -> Any {
        AnyView(Text(attribar ?? ""))
    }
}

struct ViewThatUsesCoreDataAsModel: View {
    let entities: [Parent]

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            ForEach(entities, id: \.self) { entity in
                entity.buildView
            }
        }
    }
}

struct DemoGeneratingViewInCoreDataExtension: View {
    @Environment(\.managedObjectContext) var context
    var body: some View {
        ViewThatUsesCoreDataAsModel(entities: [
           Foo(context: context), 
           Bar(context: context)
        ])
    }
}

Core Data and SwiftUI polymorphism issues

1 Answers