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Design Patterns by Tutorials

Design Patterns by Tutorials

By Joshua Greene & Jay Strawn

Copyright ©2018 Razeware LLC.

Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book or corresponding materials (such as text,
images, or source code) may be reproduced or distributed by any means without prior
written permission of the copyright owner.

Notice of Liability
This book and all corresponding materials (such as source code) are provided on an “as
is” basis, without warranty of any kind, express of implied, including but not limited to
the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and
noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders be liable for any
claim, damages or other liability, whether in action of contract, tort or otherwise,
arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use of other dealing in the
software.

Trademarks
All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing in this book are the property of
their own respective owners.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials

Dedications
"For my girls — Marsha, Madeline and Amelia. Thank you for your
patience and support. You mean the world to me, and I love you very
much."

— Joshua Greene

"To my friends and family, thank you for being extremely supportive
and loving while I undertook this huge endeavor. To Joshua Greene,
thank you for being a great mentor and wellspring of ideas. To the
raywenderlich.com editors and staff, thank you for your fantastic
help and hard work."

— Jay Strawn

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Design Patterns by Tutorials

About the Authors

Joshua Greene is an author of this book. He is an experienced iOS
developer who loves creating elegant apps. When he's not slinging
code, he enjoys martial arts, Netflix and spending time with his
wonderful wife and two daughters. You can reach him on Twitter at
@jrg_developer.

Jay Strawn is an author of this book. She is a former librarian and is

passionate about languages both human and code based. When she's
not working as a developer, Jay enjoys being an ESL conversation
partner and reading zines.

About the Editors

Darren Ferguson is a tech editor for this book. He is an experienced
software developer and works for M.C. Dean, Inc, a systems
integration provider from North Virginia. When he's not coding, you'll
find him enjoying EPL Football, traveling as much as possible and
spending time with his wife and daughter.

Aaron Douglas is a tech editor for this book. He was that kid taking
apart the mechanical and electrical appliances at five years of age to
see how they worked. He never grew out of that core interest - to
know how things work. He took an early interest in computer
programming, figuring out how to get past security to be able to play
games on his dad's computer. He's still that feisty nerd, but at least
now he gets paid to do it. Aaron works for Automattic
(WordPress.com, WooCommerce, SimpleNote) as a Mobile Maker/
Lead primarily on the WooCommerce mobile apps. Find Aaron on
Twitter as @astralbodies or at his blog at aaron.blog.

Chris Belanger is an editor of this book. Chris is the Editor in Chief

at raywenderlich.com. He was a developer for nearly 20 years in
various fields from e-health to aerial surveillance to industrial
controls. If there are words to wrangle or a paragraph to ponder, he’s
on the case. When he kicks back, you can usually find Chris with
guitar in hand, looking for the nearest beach. Twitter: @crispytwit.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials

About the Artist

Vicki Wenderlich is the designer and artist of the cover of this book.
She is Ray’s wife and business partner. She is a digital artist who
creates illustrations, game art and a lot of other art or design work for
the tutorials and books on raywenderlich.com. When she’s not
making art, she loves hiking, a good glass of wine and attempting to
create the perfect cheese plate.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials

Table of Contents: Overview

Introduction ............................................................................. 14
Book License ............................................................................ 17
Book Source Code & Forums ............................................. 18
About the Cover ..................................................................... 19
Section I: Hello, Design Patterns! .................................... 20
Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns? ................. 21
Chapter 2: How to Read a Class Diagram ............ 27
Section II: Fundamental Design Patterns ..................... 37
Chapter 3: Model-View-Controller Pattern ....... 38
Chapter 4: Delegation Pattern ................................. 61
Chapter 5: Strategy Pattern ...................................... 83
Chapter 6: Singleton Pattern .................................... 96
Chapter 7: Memento Pattern ................................. 110
Chapter 8: Observer Pattern ................................. 129
Chapter 9: Builder Pattern ...................................... 143
Section III: Intermediate Design Patterns ................. 162
Chapter 10: Model-View-ViewModel Pattern 163
Chapter 11: Factory Pattern .................................. 177
Chapter 12: Adapter Pattern ................................. 185

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Chapter 13: Iterator Pattern .................................. 196

Chapter 14: Prototype Pattern ............................. 205
Chapter 15: State Pattern ....................................... 214
Chapter 16: Multicast Delegate Pattern ........... 233
Chapter 17: Facade Pattern ................................... 245
Section IV: Advanced Design Patterns ....................... 257
Chapter 18: Flyweight Pattern .............................. 258
Chapter 19: Mediator Pattern ............................... 267
Chapter 20: Composite Pattern ............................ 289
Chapter 21: Command Pattern ............................. 299
Chapter 22: Chain-of-Responsibility Pattern.. 315
Chapter 23: Coordinator Pattern ......................... 332
Conclusion .............................................................................. 358

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Design Patterns by Tutorials

Table of Contents: Extended

Introduction ............................................................................. 14
About this book .................................................................................................................. 14
Chapter structure .............................................................................................................. 16
How to read this book ...................................................................................................... 16

Book License ............................................................................ 17

Book Source Code & Forums ............................................. 18
About the Cover ..................................................................... 19
Section I: Hello, Design Patterns! .................................... 20
Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns? .......................... 21
A real-world example ....................................................................................................... 22
Example explanation ........................................................................................................ 22
Types of design patterns ................................................................................................. 23
Criticisms of design patterns ........................................................................................ 24
Benefits of design patterns ............................................................................................ 25
Key points ............................................................................................................................. 26

Chapter 2: How to Read a Class Diagram..................... 27

What’s in a class diagram? .............................................................................................. 27
Challenges ............................................................................................................................ 33
Key points ............................................................................................................................. 36

Section II: Fundamental Design Patterns ..................... 37

Chapter 3: Model-View-Controller Pattern ................ 38
When should you use it? ................................................................................................. 39
Playground example ......................................................................................................... 39
What should you be careful about? ............................................................................ 43
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................... 43
Key points ............................................................................................................................. 60

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Chapter 4: Delegation Pattern ......................................... 61

When should you use it? ................................................................................................. 61
Playground example ......................................................................................................... 62
What should you be careful about? ............................................................................ 64
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................... 65
Key points ............................................................................................................................. 82

Chapter 5: Strategy Pattern............................................... 83

When should you use it? ................................................................................................. 84
Playground example ......................................................................................................... 84
What should you be careful about? ............................................................................ 86
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................... 86
Key points ............................................................................................................................. 95

Chapter 6: Singleton Pattern ............................................. 96

When should you use it? ................................................................................................. 96
Playground example ......................................................................................................... 97
What should you be careful about? ............................................................................ 99
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 100
Key points........................................................................................................................... 109

Chapter 7: Memento Pattern ......................................... 110

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 110
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 111
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 114
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 115
Key points........................................................................................................................... 128

Chapter 8: Observer Pattern .......................................... 129

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 130
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 130
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 138
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 138
Key points........................................................................................................................... 142

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Chapter 9: Builder Pattern .............................................. 143

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 144
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 144
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 148
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 149
Key points........................................................................................................................... 161
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 161

Section III: Intermediate Design Patterns ................. 162

Chapter 10: Model-View-ViewModel Pattern ........ 163
When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 164
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 164
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 169
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 170
Key points........................................................................................................................... 176

Chapter 11: Factory Pattern ........................................... 177

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 178
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 178
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 180
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 181
Key points........................................................................................................................... 183

Chapter 12: Adapter Pattern .......................................... 185

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 186
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 187
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 190
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 190
Key points........................................................................................................................... 194

Chapter 13: Iterator Pattern........................................... 196

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 197
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 197
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 201

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Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 201

Key points........................................................................................................................... 204
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 204

Chapter 14: Prototype Pattern ...................................... 205

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 206
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 206
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 209
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 210
Key points........................................................................................................................... 212

Chapter 15: State Pattern ................................................ 214

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 215
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 216
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 224
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 224
Key points........................................................................................................................... 232

Chapter 16: Multicast Delegate Pattern.................... 233

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 234
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 234
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 239
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 239
Key points........................................................................................................................... 244

Chapter 17: Facade Pattern ............................................ 245

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 245
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 246
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 250
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 250
Key points........................................................................................................................... 256
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 256

Section IV: Advanced Design Patterns ....................... 257

Chapter 18: Flyweight Pattern ...................................... 258

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When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 259

Playground example ...................................................................................................... 259
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 260
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 261
Key points........................................................................................................................... 265

Chapter 19: Mediator Pattern ....................................... 267

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 268
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 268
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 275
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 275
Key points........................................................................................................................... 287
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 287

Chapter 20: Composite Pattern .................................... 289

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 290
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 290
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 293
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 293
Key Points .......................................................................................................................... 298

Chapter 21: Command Pattern ..................................... 299

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 300
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 300
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 303
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 303
Key points........................................................................................................................... 313
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 314

Chapter 22: Chain-of-Responsibility Pattern .......... 315

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 316
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 317
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 325
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 325
Key points........................................................................................................................... 331

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Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 331

Chapter 23: Coordinator Pattern ................................. 332

When should you use it? ............................................................................................... 333
Playground example ...................................................................................................... 333
What should you be careful about? ......................................................................... 344
Tutorial project ................................................................................................................ 344
Key points........................................................................................................................... 356
Where to go from here?................................................................................................ 357

Conclusion .............................................................................. 358

Want to Grow Your Skills? ........................................................................................... 359

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I Introduction

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable, Object-Oriented Software, the first book to ever
describe design patterns, inspired the revolutionary idea of reusable, template solutions
to common software development problems. Design patterns aren’t specific to a
particular situation, but rather, they are solutions you can adapt and use in countless
projects.

The classic text starts off with the following statement:

"Designing object-oriented software is hard."

Why should software design be hard? We’ve done everything we can to make it easy and
understandable, so anyone can learn it.

About this book

We wrote this book with two seemingly opposite goals:

1. Make as few assumptions as possible about readers’ skill levels.

2. Make this book useful for both beginning and advanced developers.

We think we’ve done it! The only requirements for reading this book are a basic
understanding of Swift and iOS development.

If you’ve worked through our classic beginner books — the Swift Apprentice https://
store.raywenderlich.com/products/swift-apprentice and the iOS Apprentice https://
store.raywenderlich.com/products/ios-apprentice — or have similar development
experience, you’re ready to read this book.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Introduction

And if you’re an advanced developer, we also have a lot of great advanced design
patterns for you as well!

As you work through this book, you’ll progress from beginning topics to more advanced
concepts.

This book has four sections:

I. Hello, Design Patterns!

This is a high-level introduction to what design patterns are, why they’re important,
and how they will help you.

You’ll also learn how to read and use class diagrams in this section. This will make it
much easier for you to learn design patterns, so it’s important to go over this first to get
the most out of the book.

II. Fundamental Design Patterns

This section covers essential iOS design patterns. These patterns are frequently used
throughout iOS development, and every iOS developer should understand these well.

These patterns work well in combinations, so all of the chapters in this section walk you
through building a single tutorial project from the ground up.

III. Intermediate Design Patterns

This section covers design patterns that are also common, but they're used less
frequently than the fundamental design patterns in Section II.

Many of these patterns work well together, but not all. You’ll create two projects in this
section as you explore these intermediate patterns.

IV. Advanced Design Patterns

This section covers design patterns that are very useful in more rare scenarios. These
patterns may be exactly the right solution for a particular problem, but they might not
have a place in your day-to-day development. But they’re still amazing patterns that
you should keep in the back of your development toolbox!

You’ll build several tutorial projects throughout this section.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Introduction

Chapter structure
Each design pattern chapter in Sections II through IV follow a similar structure:

• What is it?

This section gives a class diagram and explains the design pattern.

• When should you use it?

This section describes the design pattern’s strengths and provides examples where
the design pattern works well.

• Playground example

This section shows you how to use the design pattern within a playground example.
This isn’t meant to be a complete project, but rather, it’s a standalone example to
teach you the basics of the design pattern.

• What should you be careful about?

This section describes the shortcomings, weaknesses and caveats of a particular

pattern. Every pattern can be misused, so it’s best to know upfront when not to use a
pattern.

• Tutorial project

This section guides you through using the design pattern in a tutorial app.

• Key points

This section provides a summary of what you learned and key points to remember for
the chapter.

How to read this book

If you’re a beginner to iOS development or design patterns, you should read this book
from cover to cover.

If you’re an advanced developer, or already have experience with some design patterns,
you can skip from chapter to chapter or use this book as a reference. While some
tutorial projects are shared between chapters, you’ll always be provided with a starter
project in each chapter to get you up and running quickly. What’s the absolute best way
to read this book? Just start reading, wherever makes sense to you!

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L Book License

By purchasing Design Patterns by Tutorials, you have the following license:

• You are allowed to use and/or modify the source code in Design Patterns by Tutorials
in as many apps as you want, with no attribution required.

• You are allowed to use and/or modify all art, images and designs that are included in
Design Patterns by Tutorials in as many apps as you want, but must include this
attribution line somewhere inside your app: “Artwork/images/designs: from Design
Patterns by Tutorials, available at www.raywenderlich.com”.

• The source code included in Design Patterns by Tutorials is for your personal use only.
You are NOT allowed to distribute or sell the source code in Design Patterns by
Tutorials without prior authorization.

• This book is for your personal use only. You are NOT allowed to sell this book
without prior authorization, or distribute it to friends, coworkers or students; they
would need to purchase their own copies.

All materials provided with this book are provided on an “as is” basis, without warranty
of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of
merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall
the authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability,
whether in an action or contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection
with the software or the use or other dealings in the software.

All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing in this guide are the properties of
their respective owners.

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B Book Source Code &
Forums

This book comes with the source code for the starter and completed projects for each
chapter. These resources are shipped with the digital edition you downloaded from
store.raywenderlich.com.

We’ve also set up an official forum for the book at forums.raywenderlich.com. This is a
great place to ask questions about the book or to submit any errors you may find.

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A About the Cover

Coral reefs contain some of the most amazing, colorful and diverse ecosystems on
Earth. Although coral reefs make up just a tiny fragment of the ocean’s underwater
area, they support over 25% of known marine life. It’s rather difficult to underestimate
the value that coral reefs add to the diversity and sustainability of our oceans.

Although reefs are highly structured, they have many variants and perform a variety of
functions. More than just pretty “rocks”, coral reefs are truly the foundation of their
surrounding ecosystems. In that way, you could consider them the “design patterns” of
the ocean!

Unfortunately, coral reefs are in dramatic decline around the world. Potentially 90% of
known coral reefs may be in serious danger in as little as ten years. Various
organizations are actively working to find ways to mitigate the issues caused from
pollution, overfishing and physical damage done to reefs. For more information, check
out the following great resources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef_protection

• https://coral.org/

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Section I: Hello, Design Patterns!

This is a high-level introduction to what design patterns are, why they're important,
and how they will help you.

You'll also learn how to read and use class diagrams in this section. This will make it
much easier for you to learn design patterns, so it’s important to go over this first to get
the most out of the book.

Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

Chapter 2: How to Read a Class Diagram

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1 Chapter 1: What are Design
Patterns?
By Joshua Greene

“Extra, extra! Read all about it!”

“Feared by newcomers. Loved by architects. Read the inside story about design patterns.
The truth may surprise you!”

Did you know design patterns can make you a better developer? “Of course,” you say
— you are reading this book, after all!

Did you know design patterns can help you make more money? It’s true. You can save
time, work less and ultimately create more great things by using design patterns
correctly.

And did you know design patterns can help you fight vampires? OK, maybe not —
design patterns aren’t silver bullets, after all.

However, design patterns are incredibly useful, no matter what language or platform
you develop for, and every developer should absolutely know about them. They should
also know how and when to apply them. That's what you're going to learn in this book!

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

A real-world example
The introduction told you that design patterns are reusable, template solutions to
common development problems. Design patterns aren’t concrete implementations, but
rather, serve as starting points for writing code. They describe generic solutions to
problems that experienced developers have encountered many times before.

What does this mean exactly...? Consider this non-development, real-world scenario:

You’re the proud owner of a gardening company, and your business is really, er,
blooming. You’ve only done a few small projects up to now - a tree planted here, and
maybe a few flowers there. However, you just landed a big client who wants several
dozen trees and flowers planted on their property.

Your standard procedure has been for your employees to carry each flower or tree
sapling into place individually. Once the flower has been temporarily placed in the
flowerbed, your customer inspects and approves the arrangement before you plant
everything in the ground.

You’re worried it’s going to take forever to carry each flower and tree into place for this
large project. And you even need a few people to carry some of the bigger trees. While
you could hire lots of temporary employees, you wouldn’t make a profit on the job.
There’s got to be a better way!

You decide to ask other gardeners what they do, and you find out they use wheelbarrows
and carts. What a great idea! You tell your employees to use a cart to move multiple
flowers at the same time into place and a wheelbarrow to move the heavy trees. In the
meantime, you use a lounge chair chair to watch your workers go to it... isn’t
management great?

So now you know all about design patterns! Wait, you need more details? Okay, let’s
break it down...

Example explanation
The “design pattern” here is the use of wheelbarrows and carts. These are common, best
practice tools in gardening. Similarly, software design patterns form a set of best
practices in development. You could have chosen not to use wheelbarrows and carts, but
akin to avoiding software design patterns, you assume more risk by making the project
more time- and labor-intensive.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

Back to the point of “asking other gardeners what they do.” Most design patterns have
been around for a long time — having started life in the 1970s and 1980s — and they
continue to work well to this day.

This longevity is partly due to the fact their use has been validated in many projects
over the decades, but it’s also because they aren’t concrete solutions.

In the gardening scenario, you decided that carts will be used to move flowers and
wheelbarrows will be used to move trees. These are implementation details: you could
have used carts to move both flowers and trees, only used wheelbarrows, or any other
combination that made the job easier.

Design patterns are generic, go-to solutions for solving common problems, like using
wheelbarrows and carts. They are starting points for concrete implementations, like
using carts for flowers and wheelbarrows for trees.

Make sense? Great! It's now time to leave the garden behind and head back to the world
of software design patterns.

Types of design patterns

There are three main types of design patterns:

1. Structural design pattern: Describes how objects are composed and combined to
form larger structures. Examples of structural design patterns include Model-View-
Controller (MVC), Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) and Facade.

2. Behavioral design pattern: Describes how objects communicate with each other.
Examples of behavioral design patterns are Delegation, Strategy and Observer.

3. Creational design pattern: Describes how to create or instantiate objects.

Examples of creational patterns are Builder, Singleton and Prototype.

You may be wondering if knowing a design pattern’s type really matters. Well, yes...and
no.

It’s not useful to memorize all patterns by type. Most developers don’t do this. However,
if you’re not sure whether a particular pattern will work, it’s sometimes useful to
consider other patterns of the same type. You just might find one that works better for
your particular problem.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

Note: There’s an ongoing debate on whether some patterns, including MVVM and
MVC, are actually architectural patterns, which span an entire app or subsystem
architecture. Hence, they are broader in scope than design patterns, which only
span components or pieces of an app. Architectural patterns can even use or
encompass several design patterns.
For the purposes of this book, a comprehensive discussion of architectural
patterns is out of scope. We’ve chosen to label MVVM and MVC as structural
design patterns because they can be used alongside other design patterns in a
component fashion. They are also very commonly used in iOS projects, and we
wanted to ensure we covered them.
If someone says these are actually architectural patterns, we don’t necessarily
disagree, as they can also be used that way.

Criticisms of design patterns

As indicated earlier, “there are no silver bullets in software development,” and design
patterns are no exception to this. This means that simply knowing and employing
design patterns will not guarantee you will create a well-architected piece of software.
There are dozens of design patterns, so knowing when and how to employ each one is
important.

Here are some common criticisms of design patterns:

If you overuse design patterns, your project can become overly

complex.
You need to be careful about overusing any tool, including design patterns. You can
minimize this issue by clearly and correctly defining the problem to be solved before
adding a design pattern to your project.

Many design patterns are made redundant by modern programming

languages.
It’s true that modern programming languages like Swift make some design patterns
irrelevant or trivial to implement. However, just because some patterns are provided via
a programming language doesn’t mean all patterns will be.

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

Design patterns are a lazy substitute for learning object-oriented

principles.
Why not learn both? A strong understanding of object-oriented principles will certainly
help you in your development.

However, if you already know a design pattern works well for a particular problem, why
should you reinvent the solution from scratch?

But, but...check out this thread on Twitter, which definitely shows that
design patterns are worthless!
Regardless of the particular criticism, design patterns have been around for a long time,
and they’ve been used in many apps. So at some point, you’re going to encounter them.

We think it’s best to have an understanding of what they are before you run into them,
instead of trying to wing it on the fly, which in our experience is usually late on a
Sunday night, the day before the release deadline, right after discovering a critical bug.

Benefits of design patterns

We’ve mentioned many benefits of design patterns already, but we wanted to point out
a few more:

Design patterns create a common language.

Instead of describing a particular solution in detail, you can simply state which design
pattern you think would work best. This streamlines communication between
developers.

Design patterns fast-track developer onboarding.

It’s much easier to onboard a new developer on a project that uses design patterns, than
on a project with completely custom logic.

Design patterns make you a better person.

Well, this one may still be up for debate. But some degree of self-improvement is never
wasted! However, there is a grain of truth to this, as the next developer to maintain your
project will certainly think you’re a better person for having left them a nice, design-
pattern-filled project instead of a spaghetti-coded mess!

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 1: What are Design Patterns?

Knowing design patterns allow you to spot similarities between code.

Once you know and understand different design patterns, you begin to notice their use
in code. This gives you a leg up as you are at least a little familiar with how to use that
code. For example, iOS and Mac programming makes heavy use of the Delegation
pattern. You would spot this pattern easily if you ever moved to another platform that
also uses Delegation and instantly be familiar with how the code is organized.

Key points
In this chapter, you learned what design patterns are and why you should care about
them. Here are the key points to remember:

• Design patterns aren't concrete implementations, but rather, they are a starting
point for writing code.

• Design patterns collectively form a set of best practices to help you write more
understandable and easier-to-maintain code.

• There are three main types of design patterns: structural, behavioral and creational.

• There are both criticisms and benefits of design patterns. Ultimately, they are
commonplace in software development, and you're likely to encounter them.
Therefore, having a good grasp of them is important.

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2 Chapter 2: How to Read a
Class Diagram
By Joshua Greene

So now you know what design patterns are! In this chapter, you’re going to learn about
a fundamental concept to help you understand design patterns: the class diagram.

Class diagrams are like engineering blueprints; they provide information about a
system through the medium of pictures, symbols and annotations.

You may have heard of Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is a standard language
for creating class diagrams, architectural drawings and other system illustrations. A
complete discussion of UML is beyond the scope of this book, but you won’t need to
understand a lot of UML in your day-to-day iOS development. Instead, you’ll learn a
subset of UML in this chapter that’s useful for creating class diagrams and describing
design patterns.

What’s in a class diagram?

Class diagrams include classes, protocols, properties, methods and relationships.

A box denotes a class. Here’s a very simple class diagram for a Dog class:

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To indicate that one class inherits from another, use an open arrowhead:

But instead of reading this as “inherits from,” read this as “is a”. For example, to show
that SheepDog inherits from Dog, you’d draw the following diagram:

You would read this, from bottom to top, as “SheepDog is a Dog.”

Use a plain arrowhead to indicate a property, which is known as an association in UML

terms:

Class diagrams can be written from bottom to top, from left to right, or in any other
orientation you’d like. Regardless of the orientation you choose, the direction of the
arrows define the meaning: Inheritance arrows always point at the superclass, and
property arrows always point at the property class.

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You should read a property arrow as “has a.” For example, if a Farmer has a Dog, you’d
draw this:

You can indicate one-to-many relationships by specifying a range next to the

arrowhead. For example, you can denote a Farmer has one or more Dogs like this:

You should always use the singular form of the class name in class diagrams, even if
you’re conveying a one-to-many relationship. In this case, you should write Dog, not
Dogs.

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You can use as many arrows and boxes as you need in a single class diagram. For
example, here’s how you’d denote a Farmer has a SheepDog that’s a Dog:

You also use a box to indicate a protocol. In order to distinguish it from a class,
however, you need to write <<protocol>> before its name.

Here’s how you’d denote a protocol called PetOwning:

Use an open arrowhead with a dashed line to indicate a class implements a protocol:

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You may either read this as “implements” or “conforms to.” For example, you’d indicate
Farmer conforms to PetOwning like this:

Use a plain arrowhead with a dashed line to indicate “uses,” which is called a
“dependency” in UML terms:

UML is intentionally vague about what a “dependency” is. Consequently, whenever you
use a dependency arrow, you usually should annotate its purpose. For example, you can
use a dependency arrow to indicate the following things:

• A weak property or delegate.

• An object that’s passed into a method as a parameter, but not held as a property.

• A loose coupling or callback, such as an IBAction from a view to a controller.

Here’s how you’d indicate that Dog delegates to a PetOwning object:

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You can also denote properties and methods in a class diagram. For example, you’d
indicate PetOwning has a name property and a petNeedsFood(_:) method like this:

If an arrow’s meaning is obvious, you can omit any explanatory text. You can generally
omit explanations for inheritance, properties and implements arrows. However, you
should usually keep text for “uses” arrows, as their meaning isn’t always obvious.

Here’s the complete class diagram for a Farmer that has a SheepDog, which is a Dog that
delegates to a PetOwning object:

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Challenges
Now that you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to test your knowledge!

On a piece of paper, draw class diagrams for each of the following challenges. When
you’re ready, check the next page for answers:

1. Dog and Cat inherit from Animal, which defines an eat method.

2. Vehicle protocol has one Motor and one or more Wheel objects.

3. Professor is a Teacher and conforms to a Person protocol.

There are many correct solutions to each of these challenges. For example, you don’t
have to draw the diagram from top to bottom. Instead, you can draw it from left to right
or another orientation. As long as your class diagram clearly conveys the intended
meaning, it’s correct!

Solutions on the next page.

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Solution 1. You need three boxes: one for Cat, Dog and Animal. You need an open
arrowhead from Cat to Animal and another open arrowhead from Dog to Animal. You
should also indicate eat() on Animal.

Solution 2. You should have three boxes: one for <<protocol>> Vehicle, Motor and
Wheel. You should have a plain arrowhead from Vehicle to Motor and another plain
arrowhead from Vehicle to Wheel. You should also have 1 ... * next to the arrowhead
pointing at Wheel.

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Solution 3. The wording for this problem was intentionally ambiguous. We could have
meant that either Teacher conforms to Person, or Professor conforms to Person. In
both cases, Professor would conform to Person either directly, or indirectly through
Teacher.

If Teacher conforms to Person and Professor inherits from Teacher, the class diagram
looks like this:

If Professor conforms to Person, but Teacher does not, the class diagram looks like this:

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Key points
You learned the basics of class diagrams in this chapter. This is all you’ll need to
understand the diagrams in the rest of this book. You can always refer back to this
chapter if you need to do so!

Here are the key points you learned:

• Class diagrams give a visual representation of class and protocol types, showing their
properties and methods.

• Class diagrams also show the relationship between the object types.

• Class diagrams can be drawn in any other orientation; the direction of the arrows
define the meaning.

• Boxes denote classes, and lines denote relationships: “implements,” “has a,” “uses“
and “conforms to” are the most common relations.

• Boxes can also denote protocols, which is indicated by <<protocol>> before the
name.

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Section II: Fundamental Design
Patterns

This section covers essential iOS design patterns. These patterns are frequently used
throughout iOS development, and every iOS developer should understand these well.

These patterns work well in combinations, so all of the chapters in this section walk you
through building a single tutorial project from the ground up.

Chapter 3: Model-View-Controller Pattern

Chapter 4: Delegation Pattern
Chapter 5: Strategy Pattern
Chapter 6: Singleton Pattern
Chapter 7: Memento Pattern
Chapter 8: Observer Pattern
Chapter 9: Builder Pattern

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3 Chapter 3: Model-View-
Controller Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The model-view-controller (MVC) pattern separates objects into three distinct types.
Yep, you guessed it: the three types are: models, views and controllers!

It's fairly simple to explain the relationship between these types using the following
diagram:

• Models hold application data. They are usually structs or simple classes.

• Views display visual elements and controls on screen. They are usually subclasses of
UIView.

• Controllers coordinate between models and views. They are usually subclasses of
UIViewController.

MVC is very common in iOS programming, because it's the design pattern that Apple
chose to adopt in UIKit.

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Controllers are allowed to have strong properties for their model and view so they can
be accessed directly. Controllers may have more than one model and/or view.

Conversely, models and views should not hold a strong reference to their owning
controller. This would cause a retain cycle.

Instead, models communicate to their controller via property observing, which you’ll
learn about in-depth in a later chapter, and views communicate to their controller via
IBActions.

This lets you reuse models and views between several controllers. Win!

Note: Views may have a weak reference to their owning controller through a
delegate (see Chapter 4, “Delegation Pattern”). For example, a UITableView may
hold a weak reference to its owning view controller for its delegate and/or
dataSource references. However, the table view doesn't know these are set to its
owning controller - they just happen to be.

Controllers are much harder to reuse since their logic is often very specific to whatever
task they are doing. Consequently, MVC doesn’t try to reuse them.

When should you use it?

Use this pattern as a starting point for creating iOS apps.

In nearly every app, you’ll likely need additional patterns besides MVC, but it’s okay to
introduce more patterns as your app requires them.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory. This is a
collection of playground pages, one for each fundamental design pattern you’ll learn.
By the end of this section, you’ll have a nice design patterns reference!

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Open the Overview page from the File hierarchy.

This page lists the three types of design patterns:

• Structural patterns describe how objects are composed to form larger subsystems.

• Behavioral patterns describe how objects communicate with each other.

• Creational patterns instantiate or “create” objects for you.

MVC is a structural pattern because it’s all about composing objects as models, views or
controllers.

Next, open the Model-View-Controller page from the File hierarchy. For the Code
Example, you'll create an "Address Screen" using MVC.

Can you guess what the three parts of an Address Screen would be? A model, view and
controller, of course! Add this code after Code Example to create the model:

import UIKit

// MARK: - Address
public struct Address {
public var street: String
public var city: String
public var state: String
public var zipCode: String
}

This creates a simple struct that represents an Address.

The import UIKit is required to create the AddressView as a subclass of UIView next.
Add this code to do so:

// MARK: - AddressView
public final class AddressView: UIView {
@IBOutlet public var streetTextField: UITextField!
@IBOutlet public var cityTextField: UITextField!
@IBOutlet public var stateTextField: UITextField!
@IBOutlet public var zipCodeTextField: UITextField!
}

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In an actual iOS app instead of a playground, you’d also create a xib or storyboard for
this view and connect the IBOutlet properties to its subviews. You’ll practice doing this
later in the tutorial project for this chapter.

Lastly, you need to create the AddressViewController. Add this code next:

// MARK: - AddressViewController
public final class AddressViewController: UIViewController {

// MARK: - Properties
public var address: Address?
public var addressView: AddressView! {
guard isViewLoaded else { return nil }
return (view as! AddressView)
}
}

Here you have the controller holding a strong reference to the view and model that it
owns.

The addressView is a computed property, as it only has a getter. It first checks

isViewLoaded to prevent creating the view before the view controller is presented on
screen. If isViewLoaded is true, it casts the view to an AddressView. To silence a
warning, you surround this cast with parentheses.

In an actual iOS app, you’d also need to specify the view’s class on the storyboard or
xib, to ensure the app correctly creates an AddressView instead of the default UIView.

Recall that it’s the controller’s responsibility to coordinate between the model and view.
In this case, the controller should update its addressView using the values from the
address.

A good place to do this is whenever viewDidLoad is called. Add the following to the end
of the AddressViewController class:

// MARK: - View Lifecycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
updateViewFromAddress()
}

private func updateViewFromAddress() {

guard let addressView = addressView,
let address = address else { return }
addressView.streetTextField.text = address.street
addressView.cityTextField.text = address.city
addressView.stateTextField.text = address.state
addressView.zipCodeTextField.text = address.zipCode
}

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In the event an address is set after viewDidLoad is called, the controller should update
addressView then too.

Replace the address property with the following:

public var address: Address? {

didSet {
updateViewFromAddress()
}
}

This is an example of how the model can tell the controller that something has
changed and that the views need updating.

What if you also want to allow the user to update the address from the view? That’s
right — you’d create an IBAction on the controller.

Add this right after updateViewFromAddress():

// MARK: - Actions
@IBAction public func updateAddressFromView(
_ sender: AnyObject) {

guard let street = addressView.streetTextField.text,

street.count > 0,
let city = addressView.cityTextField.text,
city.count > 0,
let state = addressView.stateTextField.text,
state.count > 0,
let zipCode = addressView.zipCodeTextField.text,
zipCode.count > 0 else {
// TO-DO: show an error message, handle the error, etc
return
}
address = Address(street: street, city: city,
state: state, zipCode: zipCode)
}

Finally, this is an example of how the view can tell the controller that something has
changed, and the model needs updating. In an actual iOS app, you’d also need to
connect this IBAction from a subview of AddressView, such as a valueChanged event on
a UITextField or touchUpInside event on a UIButton.

All in all, this gives you a simple example for how the MVC pattern works. You've seen
how the controller owns the models and the views, and how each can interact with each
other, but always through the controller.

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What should you be careful about?

MVC is a good starting point, but it has limitations. Not every object will neatly fit into
the category of model, view or controller. Consequently, applications that only use MVC
tend to have a lot of logic in the controllers. This can result in view controllers getting
very big! There's a rather quaint term for when this happens, called "Massive View
Controller."

To solve this issue, you should introduce other design patterns as your app requires
them.

Tutorial project
Throughout this section, you’ll create a tutorial app called Rabble Wabble.

It’s a language learning app, similar to Duolingo (http://bit.ly/ios-duolingo), WaniKani

(http://bit.ly/wanikani) and Anki (http://bit.ly/ios-anki).

You’ll be creating the project from scratch, so open Xcode and select File ▸ New ▸
Project. Then select iOS ▸ Single View App, and press Next.

Enter RabbleWabble for the Product Name; select your Team or leave as None if you
don’t have one set up (it’s not required if you only use the simulator); set your
Organization Name and Organization Identifier to whatever you’d like; verify
Language is set to Swift; uncheck Use Core Data, Include Unit Tests and Include UI
Tests; and click Next to continue.

Choose a convenient location to save the project, and press Create.

You need to do a bit of organization to showcase the MVC pattern.

Open ViewController.swift from the File hierarchy, and delete all of the boilerplate
code inside the curly braces. Then right-click on ViewController and select Refactor ▸
Rename....

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Type QuestionViewController as the new name, and press Enter to make the change.
Then, add the keyword public before class QuestionViewController like this:

public class QuestionViewController: UIViewController

Throughout this book, you'll use public for types, properties and methods that should
be publicly accessible to other classes; you'll use private if something should only be
accessible to the type itself; and you'll use internal if it should be accessible to
subclasses or related classes but isn't intended for general use otherwise. This is known
as access control.

This is a "best practice" in iOS development. If you ever move these files into a separate
module, to create a shared library or framework for example, you'll find it much easier
to do if you follow this best practice.

Next, select the yellow RabbleWabble group in the File hierarchy, and press
Command + Option + N together to create a new group.

Select the new group and press Enter to edit its name. Input AppDelegate, and press
Enter again to confirm.

Repeat this process to create new groups for Controllers, Models, Resources and
Views.

Move AppDelegate.swift into the AppDelegate group,

QuestionViewController.swift into Controllers, Assets.xcassets and Info.plist into
Resources, and LaunchScreen.storyboard and Main.storyboard into Views.

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Lastly, right-click on the yellow RabbleWabble group and select Sort by Name.

Your File hierarchy should ultimately look like this:

Since you moved Info.plist, you need to tell Xcode where its new location is. To do so,
select the blue RabbleWabble project folder; select the RabbleWabble target, select
the General tab, and click Choose Info.plist File....

In the new window that appears, click Info.plist from the file listing and press Choose
to set it. Build and run to verify you don’t see any errors in Xcode.

This is a great start to using the MVC pattern! By simply grouping your files this way,
you’re telling other developers your project uses MVC. Clarity is good!

Creating the models

You’ll next create Rabble Wabble’s models.

First, you need to create a Question model. Select the Models group in the File
hierarchy and press Command + N to create a new file. Select Swift File from the list
and click Next. Name the file Question.swift and click Create.

Replace the entire contents of Question.swift with the following:

public struct Question {

public let answer: String

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public let hint: String?

public let prompt: String
}

You also need another model to act as a container for a group of questions.

Create another file in the Models group named QuestionGroup.swift, and replace its
entire contents with the following:

public struct QuestionGroup {

public let questions: [Question]
public let title: String
}

Next, you need to add the data for the QuestionGroups. This could amount to a lot of
retyping, so I’ve provided a file that you can simply drag and drop into the project.

Open Finder and navigate to where you have the projects downloaded for this chapter.
Alongside the Starter and Final directories, you’ll see a Resources directory that
contains QuestionGroupData.swift, Assets.xcassets and LaunchScreen.storyboard.

Position the Finder window above Xcode and drag and drop
QuestionGroupData.swift into the Models group like this:

When prompted, check the option for Copy items if needed and press Finish to add
the file.

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Since you already have the Resources directory open, you should copy over the other
files as well. First, select the existing Assets.xcassets in the app under Resources and
press Delete to remove it. Choose Move to Trash when prompted. Then, drag and drop
the new Assets.xcassets from Finder into the app’s Resources group, checking Copy
items if needed when prompted.

Next, select the existing LaunchScreen.storyboard in the app under Views and press
Delete to remove it. Again, make sure you pick Move to Trash when prompted. Then,
drag and drop the new LaunchScreen.storyboard from Finder into the app’s
Resources group, checking Copy items if needed when prompted.

Open QuestionGroupData.swift, and you’ll see there are several static methods
defined for basic phrases, numbers, and more. This dataset is in Japanese, but you can
tweak it to another language if you prefer. You’ll be using these soon!

Open LaunchScreen.storyboard, and you’ll see a nice layout that will be shown
whenever the app is launched.

Build and run to check out the sweet app icon and launch screen!

Creating the view

You now need to setup the “view” part of MVC. Select the Views group, and create a
new file called QuestionView.swift.

Replace its contents with the following:

import UIKit

public class QuestionView: UIView {

@IBOutlet public var answerLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var correctCountLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var incorrectCountLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var promptLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var hintLabel: UILabel!
}

Next, open Main.storyboard and scroll to the existing scene. Press the Object library
button and enter label into the search field. Hold down the option key to prevent the
window from closing, and drag and drop three labels onto the scene without
overlapping them.

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Press the red X on the Object library window to close it afterwards.

Double-click on the top-most label and set its text as Prompt. Set the middle label’s
text as Hint, and set the bottom label’s text as Answer.

Select the Prompt label, then open the Utilities pane and select the Attributes
inspector tab. Set the label’s Font to System 50.0, set its Alignment to center and
Lines to 0.

Set the Hint label’s Font to System 24.0, Alignment to center and Lines to 0.

Set the Answer label’s Font to System 48.0, Alignment to center and Lines to 0.

If needed, resize the labels to prevent clipping, and rearrange them to remain in the
same order without overlapping.

Next, select the Prompt label, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the
following:

• Set the top constraint to 60

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• Set the leading constraint to 0

• Set the trailing constraint to 0

• Check constrain to margins

• Press Add 3 Constraints

Select the Hint label, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the following:

• Set the top constraint to 8

• Set the leading constraint to 0

• Set the trailing constraint to 0

• Check constrain to margins

• Press Add 3 Constraints

Select the Answer label, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the
following:

• Set the top constraint to 50.

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• Set the leading constraint to 0.

• Set the trailing constraint to 0.

• Check constrain to margins.

• Press Add 3 Constraints.

The scene should now look like this:

Next, press the Object library button, enter UIButton into the search field and drag a
new button into the bottom left corner of the view.

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Open the Attributes Inspector, set the button’s image to ic_circle_x, and delete the
Button default title.

Drag another button into the bottom right corner of the view. Set its image to
ic_circle_check, and delete the Button default title.

Drag a new label onto the scene. Position this right below the red X button and set its
text to 0. Open the Attributes Inspector and set the Color to match the red circle. Set
the Font to System 32.0, and set the Alignment to center. Resize this label as
necessary to prevent clipping.

Drag another label onto the scene, position it below the green check button and set its
text to 0. Open the Attributes Inspector and set the Color to match the green circle.
Set the Font to System 32.0, and set the Alignment to center. Resize this label as
necessary to prevent clipping.

You next need to set the constraints on the buttons and labels.

Select the red circle button, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the
following:

• Set the leading constraint to 32.

• Set the bottom constraint to 8.

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• Check constrain to margins.

• Press Add 2 Constraints.

Select the red-colored label, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the
following:

• Set the bottom constraint to 24.

• Check constrain to margins.

• Press Add 1 Constraints.

Select both the red circle image view and the red-colored label together, select the
icon for Align and do the following:

• Check the box for Horizontal Centers.

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• Press Add 1 Constraint.

Select the green circle image view, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do
the following:

• Set the trailing constraint to 32.

• Set the bottom constraint to 8.

• Check constrain to margins.

• Press Add 2 Constraints

Select the green-colored label, select the icon for Add New Constraints and do the
following:

• Set the bottom constraint to 24.

• Check constrain to margins.

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• Press Add 1 Constraints.

Select both the green circle image view and the green-colored label together, select the
icon for Align and do the following:

• Check the box for Horizontal Centers.

• Press Add 1 Constraint

The scene should now look like this:

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To complete the QuestionView setup, you need to set the view’s class on the scene and
connect the properties.

Click on the view on the scene, being careful not to select any subview instead, and
open the Identity Inspector. Set the Class as QuestionView.

Open the Connections Inspector and drag from each of the Outlets to the appropriate
subviews as shown:

Build and run and check out the view. Awesome!

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Creating the controller

You’re finally ready to create the “controller” part of MVC.

Open QuestionViewController.swift and add the following properties:

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public var questionGroup = QuestionGroup.basicPhrases()
public var questionIndex = 0

public var correctCount = 0

public var incorrectCount = 0

public var questionView: QuestionView! {

guard isViewLoaded else { return nil }
return (view as! QuestionView)
}

You hardcode the questionGroup to basic phrases for now. In a future chapter you will
expand the app so that the user will be able to select the question group from a listing.

The questionIndex is the index of the current question displayed. You’ll increment this
as the user goes through questions.

The correctCount is the count of correct responses. The user indicates a correct
response by pressing the green check button.

Likewise, the incorrectCount is the count of incorrect responses, which the user will
indicate by pressing the red X button.

The questionView is a computed property. Here you check isViewLoaded so you won’t
cause the view to be loaded unintentionally by accessing this property. If the view is
already loaded, you force cast it to QuestionView.

You next need to add code to actually show a Question. Add the following right after the
properties you just added:

// MARK: - View Lifecycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
showQuestion()
}

private func showQuestion() {

let question = questionGroup.questions[questionIndex]

questionView.answerLabel.text = question.answer
questionView.promptLabel.text = question.prompt
questionView.hintLabel.text = question.hint

questionView.answerLabel.isHidden = true

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questionView.hintLabel.isHidden = true
}

Notice here how you're writing code in the controller to manipulate the views based on
the data in the models. MVC FTW!

Build and run to see how a question looks on screen!

Right now, there isn’t any way to see the answer. You should probably fix this.

Add the following to code to the end of the view controller:

// MARK: - Actions
@IBAction func toggleAnswerLabels(_ sender: Any) {
questionView.answerLabel.isHidden =
!questionView.answerLabel.isHidden
questionView.hintLabel.isHidden =
!questionView.hintLabel.isHidden
}

This will toggle whether the hint and answer labels are hidden. You set the answer and
hint labels to hidden in showQuestion() to reset the state each time a new question is
shown.

This is an example of a view notifying its controller about an action that has happened.
In response, the controller executes code for handling the action.

You also need to hook up this action on the view. Open Main.storyboard and press the
Object library button.

Enter tap into the search field, and drag and drop a Tap Gesture Recognizer onto the
view.

Make sure that you drag this onto the base view, and not one of the labels or buttons!

Control-drag from the Tap Gesture Recognizer object to the Question View
Controller object on the scene, and then select toggleAnswerLabels:.

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Build and run and try tapping on the view to show/hide the answer and hint labels.

Next, you need to handle the case whenever the buttons are pressed.

Open QuestionViewController.swift and add the following at the end of the class:

// 1
@IBAction func handleCorrect(_ sender: Any) {
correctCount += 1
questionView.correctCountLabel.text = "\(correctCount)"
showNextQuestion()
}

// 2
@IBAction func handleIncorrect(_ sender: Any) {
incorrectCount += 1
questionView.incorrectCountLabel.text = "\(incorrectCount)"
showNextQuestion()
}

// 3
private func showNextQuestion() {
questionIndex += 1
guard questionIndex < questionGroup.questions.count else {
// TODO: - Handle this...!
return
}
showQuestion()
}

You just defined three more actions. Here’s what each does:

1. handleCorrect(_:) will be called whenever the user presses the green circle button
to indicate they got the answer correct. Here, you increase the correctCount and set
the correctCountLabel text.

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2. handleIncorrect(_:) will be called whenever the user presses the red circle button
to indicate they got the answer incorrect. Here, you increase the incorrectCount
and set the incorrectCountLabel text.

3. showNextQuestion() is called to advance to the next Question. You guard that there
are additional questions remaining, based on whether questionIndex is less than
questionGroup.questions.count, and show the next question if so.

You’ll handle the case that there aren’t any more questions in the next chapter.

Lastly, you need to connect the buttons on the view to these actions.

Open Main.storyboard, select the red circle button, then Control-drag onto the
QuestionViewController object and select handleIncorrect:.

Likewise, select the green circle button, then Control-drag onto the
QuestionViewController object and select handleCorrect:.

Once again these are examples of views notifying the controller that something needs
to be handled. Build and run and try pressing each of the buttons.

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Key points
You learned about the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern in this chapter. Here are
its key points:

• MVC separates objects into three categories: models, views and controllers.

• MVC promotes reusing models and views between controllers. Since controller logic
is often very specific, MVC doesn't usually reuse controllers.

• The controller is responsible for coordinating between the model and view: it sets
model values onto the view, and it handles IBAction calls from the view.

• MVC is a good starting point, but it has limitations. Not every object will neatly fit
into the category of model, view or controller. You should use other patterns as
needed along with MVC.

You’ve gotten Rabble Wabble off to a great start! However, there’s still a lot of
functionality you need to add: letting the user pick question groups, handling what
happens when there aren’t any questions remaining and more!

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the delegation design pattern and
continue building out Rabble Wabble.

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4 Chapter 4: Delegation
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The delegation pattern enables an object to use another “helper” object to provide data
or perform a task rather than do the task itself. This pattern has three parts:

• An object needing a delegate, also known as the delegating object. It’s the object
that has a delegate. The delegate is usually held as a weak property to avoid a retain
cycle where the delegating object retains the delegate, which retains the delegating
object.

• A delegate protocol, which defines the methods a delegate may or should

implement.

• A delegate, which is the helper object that implements the delegate protocol.

By relying on a delegate protocol instead of a concrete object, the implementation is

much more flexible: any object that implements the protocol can be used as the
delegate!

When should you use it?

Use this pattern to break up large classes or create generic, reusable components.
Delegate relationships are common throughout Apple frameworks, especially UIKit.
Both DataSource- and Delegate-named objects actually follow the delegation pattern,
as each involves one object asking another to provide data or do something.

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Why isn’t there just one protocol, instead of two, in Apple frameworks?

Apple frameworks commonly use the term DataSource to group delegate methods that
provide data. For example, UITableViewDataSource is expected to provide
UITableViewCells to display.

Apple frameworks typically use protocols named Delegate to group methods that
receive data or events. For example, UITableViewDelegate is notified whenever a row is
selected.

It’s common for the dataSource and delegate to be set to the same object, such as the
view controller that owns a UITableView. However, they don’t have to be, and it can be
very beneficial at times to have them set to different objects.

Playground example
Let’s take a look at some code!

Open FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory and then

open the Overview page, if it’s not already.

You’ll see that Delegation is listed under Behavioral Patterns. This is because
delegation is all about one object communicating with another object.

Click on the Delegation link to open that page.

For the code example, you’ll create a MenuViewController that has a tableView and acts
as both the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate.

First, create the MenuViewController class by adding the following code directly after
Code Example, ignoring any compiler errors for the moment:

import UIKit

public class MenuViewController: UIViewController {

// 1
@IBOutlet public var tableView: UITableView! {
didSet {
tableView.dataSource = self
tableView.delegate = self
}
}

// 2
private let items = ["Item 1", "Item 2", "Item 3"]
}

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Here’s what this does:

1. In a real app, you’d also need to set the @IBOutlet for the tableView within
Interface Builder, or create the table view in code. You can optionally also set the
tableView.delegate and tableView.dataSource directly in Interface Builder, or you
can do this in code as shown here.

2. The items will be used as the menu titles displayed on the table view.

As Xcode is likely complaining, you actually need to make MenuViewController conform

to UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate.

Add the following code below the class definition:

// MARK: - UITableViewDataSource
extension MenuViewController: UITableViewDataSource {

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath)
-> UITableViewCell {
let cell =
tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "Cell",
for: indexPath)
cell.textLabel?.text = items[indexPath.row]
return cell
}

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
return items.count
}
}

// MARK: - UITableViewDelegate
extension MenuViewController: UITableViewDelegate {

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
// To do next....
}
}

Both the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate are technically delegate

protocols: They define methods that a “helper” object must implement.

It’s easy to create your own delegates too. For example, you can create a delegate to be
notified whenever a user selects a menu item.

Add the following code below import UIKit:

public protocol MenuViewControllerDelegate: class {

func menuViewController(

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_ menuViewController: MenuViewController,
didSelectItemAtIndex index: Int)
}

Next, add the following property right above @IBOutlet var tableView:

public weak var delegate: MenuViewControllerDelegate?

The common convention in iOS is to set delegate objects after an object is created. This
is exactly what you do here: after MenuViewController is created (however this may
happen in the app), it expects that its delegate property will be set.

Lastly, you need to actually inform this delegate whenever the user selects an item.

Replace the // To do next... comment in the UITableViewDelegate extension with

the following:

delegate?.menuViewController(self,
didSelectItemAtIndex: indexPath.row)

It’s common convention to pass the delegating object, which in this case is the
MenuViewController, to each of its delegate method calls. This way, the delegate can
use or inspect the caller if needed.

So now you have created your own delegate protocol, to which the MenuViewController
delegates when an item in the list is selected. In a real app, this would handle what to
do when the item is selected, such as moving to a new screen.

Easy, right?

What should you be careful about?

Delegates are extremely useful, but they can be overused. Be careful about creating too
many delegates for an object.

If an object needs several delegates, this may be an indicator that it’s doing too much.
Consider breaking up the object’s functionality for specific use cases, instead of one
catch-all class.

It’s hard to put a number on how many is too many; there’s no golden rule. However, if
you find yourself constantly switching between classes to understand what’s
happening, then that’s a sign you have too many. Similarly, if you cannot understand
why a certain delegate is useful, then that’s a sign it’s too small, and you’ve split things
up too much.

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You should also be careful about creating retain cycles. Most often, delegate properties
should be weak. If an object must absolutely have a delegate set, consider adding the
delegate as an input to the object’s initializer and marking its type as forced unwrapped
using ! instead of optional via ?. This will force consumers to set the delegate before
using the object.

If you find yourself tempted to create a strong delegate, another design pattern may be
better suited for your use case. For example, you might consider using the strategy
pattern instead. See Chapter 5 for more details.

Tutorial project
The playground example has given you a small taste for what it looks like to implement
the delegation pattern. It’s now time to take that theory and make use of it in an app.
You’ll continue the RabbleWabble app from the previous chapter, and add a menu
controller to select the group of questions.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter, and then open
starter\RabbleWabble\RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Instead of just showing the basic phrases questions, you’ll create a new view controller
to let the user select from a list of question group options.

In the File hierarchy, right-click on Controllers and select New File. Select the iOS
tab, pick Swift File from the list, and click Next. Enter
SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift for the file name and click Create.

Replace the contents of the SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift with the

following:

import UIKit

public class SelectQuestionGroupViewController: UIViewController {

// MARK: - Outlets
@IBOutlet internal var tableView: UITableView! {
didSet {
tableView.tableFooterView = UIView()
}
}

// MARK: - Properties
public let questionGroups = QuestionGroup.allGroups()
private var selectedQuestionGroup: QuestionGroup!
}

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You’ll use the tableView to display a list of question groups. Whenever the tableView is
set, you set tableView.tableFooterView to a blank UIView. This trick is to prevent the
table view from drawing unnecessary empty table view cells, which it does by default
after all the other cells are drawn.

You set questionGroups to QuestionGroup.allGroups(), which is a convenience method

provided by the extension defined in QuestionGroupData.swift that simply returns all
of the possible QuestionGroup options.

You’ll later use selectedQuestionGroup to hold onto whichever QuestionGroup the user
selects.

Next, you need to make SelectQuestionGroupViewController conform to

UITableViewDataSource to display the table view cells. Add the following extension to
the end of the file:

// MARK: - UITableViewDataSource
extension SelectQuestionGroupViewController: UITableViewDataSource {

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

numberOfRowsInSection section: Int)
-> Int {
return questionGroups.count
}

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath)
-> UITableViewCell {
return UITableViewCell()
}
}

For now, you simply return an empty UITableViewCell from tableView(_:,

cellForRowAt:) as a placeholder.

In order to actually implement this, you need a custom UITableViewCell subclass. This
will allow you to completely control the cell’s look and feel. In the File hierarchy,
right-click on Views and select New File. Select the iOS tab, pick Swift File from the
list, and click Next. Enter QuestionGroupCell.swift for the file name and click Create.

Replace the contents of QuestionGroupCell.swift with the following:

import UIKit

public class QuestionGroupCell: UITableViewCell {

@IBOutlet public var titleLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var percentageLabel: UILabel!
}

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You’ll create this view and connect the outlets soon, but for now, open
SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift again.

Replace the existing tableView(_:, cellForRowAt:) with the following:

public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,

cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath)
-> UITableViewCell {
let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(
withIdentifier: "QuestionGroupCell") as! QuestionGroupCell
let questionGroup = questionGroups[indexPath.row]
cell.titleLabel.text = questionGroup.title
return cell
}

Build and run to make sure you don’t have any compiler warnings. You shouldn’t see
anything different just yet, however, as you haven’t actually added
SelectQuestionGroupViewController to the app. You’ll do this next.

Setting up the views

Open Main.storyboard, select the Object library button and enter UIViewController
into the search field in the new window that appears. Hold the Option key to prevent
the window from closing and drag and drop a new View Controller to the left of the
existing scene.

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Next, enter UITableView into the search field on the Object library window, and
drag and drop a new Table View onto the new view controller.

Select the table view, then select the Add New Constraints icon, and do the following:

• Set the top constraint to 0.

• Set the leading constraint to 0.

• Set the trailing constraint to 0.

• Set the bottom constraint to 0.

• Uncheck constrain to margins.

• Press Add 4 Constraints.

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Enter UITableViewCell into the search field on the Object library window, and drag
and drop a Table View Cell onto the table view.

Lastly, enter label into the search field on the Object library window, and drag two
new labels onto the table view cell. Then, press the red X on the Object library
window to close it.

Position the first label to the far left of the cell aligned with the top and left margins (it
should show blue indicators). Double-click this label and set its text to Title.

Position the second label to the far right of the cell aligned with the top and right
margins. Double-click this label and set its text to 0%.

Your scene should now look like this:

You now need to set constraints on the labels.

Select the Title label, then select the Add New Constraints icon, and do the following:

• Set the top constraint to 0.

• Set the leading constraint to 0.

• Set the trailing constraint to 8.

• Set the bottom constraint to 0.

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• Verify constrain to margins is checked.

• Press Add 4 Constraints.

Select the 0% label, then select the Add New Constraints icon and do the following:

• Set the top constraint to 0.

• Set the trailing constraint to 0.

• Set the bottom constraint to 0.

• Verify constrain to margins is checked.

• Press Add 3 Constraints.

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Lastly, select the Percent label, go to the Size Inspector, scroll down to Content
Hugging Priority and set Horizontal to 750.

Great! You’ve got the views all set up. You next need to set the class identity, reuse
identifier and hookup IBOutlets.

Select the table view cell, go to the Identity Inspector and set the Class to
QuestionGroupCell.

With the cell still selected, switch to the Attributes Inspector and set the Identifier to
QuestionGroupCell.

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Switch to the Connections Inspector, and drag the titleLabel outlet on to the Title
label and the percentageLabel on to the 0% label.

Next, select the yellow view controller object on the scene, go to the Identity
Inspector and set the Class to SelectQuestionGroupViewController.

With the SelectQuestionGroupViewController still selected, go to the Connections

Inspector, then drag and drop the tableView outlet onto the table view in the scene.

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Next, select the table view in the scene, go to the Connections Inspector and drag and
drop both the dataSource and delegate outlets onto the yellow view controller
object.

In order to show the SelectQuestionGroupViewController whenever the app is opened,

you need to set it as the Initial View Controller.

To do so, drag and drop the Arrow currently pointing at the QuestionViewController
scene to point at the SelectQuestionGroupViewController scene instead.

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It should look like this:

Build and run to see the question groups displayed on the table view. Sweet!

Tap on a cell, however, and the app does nothing. Your next job is to fix this.

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Displaying selected question groups

Open Main.storyboard again and select the SelectQuestionGroupViewController
scene. Press the Editor menu button, and then Embed In ▸ Navigation Controller.

Click on the newly-added navigation bar on the SelectQuestionGroupViewController

scene to select the Navigation Item, then go to the Attributes Inspector and set the
Title to Select Question Group.

You next need to create a segue to the QuestionViewController scene.

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To do so, select the QuestionGroupCell, then Control-drag and drop it onto the
QuestionViewController scene.

Select Show in the popup window that appears. This creates a segue that will be
triggered whenever the user taps a table view cell.

Build and run and try clicking on the first table view cell. Awesome; you can see
questions!

Press the back button and try clicking on the second cell. Oh wait... are those the same
questions?! Yes, they are indeed. You need to set the selected QuestionGroup on the
QuestionViewController. To do so, you’ll need to make
SelectQuestionGroupViewController conform to UITableViewDelegate to be notified of
taps on the table view.

Open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and add the following extension to

the end of the file:

// MARK: - UITableViewDelegate
extension SelectQuestionGroupViewController: UITableViewDelegate {

// 1
public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,
willSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath)
-> IndexPath? {
selectedQuestionGroup = questionGroups[indexPath.row]
return indexPath

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// 2
public func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView,
didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath, animated: true)
}

// 3
public override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue,
sender: Any?) {
guard let viewController = segue.destination
as? QuestionViewController else { return }
viewController.questionGroup = selectedQuestionGroup
}
}

Here’s what each of these methods is doing:

1. This sets the selectedQuestionGroup to the one that was selected. You have to do
this here instead of in tableView(_:, didSelectRowAt:), because didSelectRowAt:
is triggered after the segue is performed. If you set selectedQuestionGroup in
didSelectRowAt: then the app would crash on the line
viewController.questionGroup = selectedQuestionGroup as
selectedQuestionGroup would still be nil.

2. Within tableView(_:, didSelectRowAt:), you simply deselect the table view cell.
This is just a nicety so you won’t see any selected cells should you return to this
view controller later.

3. Within prepare(for:, sender:), you guard that the segue.destination is actually a

QuestionViewController (just in case!), and if so, you set its questionGroup to the
selectedQuestionGroup.

Build and run and try selecting the first and then the second table view cells as you did
before to verify its working as expected.

Great job!

Creating a custom delegate

The app is starting to come along, but there’s still a few things missing:

1. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually show the title of the question group on the
QuestionViewController? You bet it would!

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2. You also can’t see how many questions are remaining in the
QuestionViewController. It’d be great if this showed up!

3. Furthermore, if you click through all of the questions in the

QuestionViewController (by pressing either the green check or red X buttons),
nothing happens at the end. It’d be nice if something happened!

4. Lastly, it’s common convention for a “presented” controller to notify its caller,
typically via a delegate, whenever “Cancel” is pressed. There’s no option to cancel at
the moment, but there is a back button. It’d be great to replace this with a custom
bar button item instead!

While it sounds like a bit of work, all of these are actually just a few lines of coding. You
can do it!

To resolve the first issue, open QuestionViewController and replace:

public var questionGroup = QuestionGroup.basicPhrases()

with the following:

public var questionGroup: QuestionGroup! {

didSet {
navigationItem.title = questionGroup.title
}
}

Build and run, and voila, the title shows on the navigation bar!

To resolve the second issue, add the following right after the other properties:

private lazy var questionIndexItem: UIBarButtonItem = {

let item = UIBarButtonItem(title: "",

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style: .plain,
target: nil,
action: nil)
item.tintColor = .black
navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = item
return item
}()

Finally, add the following line to the end of showQuestion():

questionIndexItem.title = "\(questionIndex + 1)/" +

"\(questionGroup.questions.count)"

Build and run and try clicking through the questions. Cool, right?

Addressing the last two issues is a bit trickier. You need to create a custom delegate for
them. Fortunately, this is also pretty easy to do.

Add the following to the top of QuestionViewController.swift, below import UIKit:

// MARK: - QuestionViewControllerDelegate
public protocol QuestionViewControllerDelegate: class {

// 1
func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didCancel questionGroup: QuestionGroup,
at questionIndex: Int)

// 2
func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didComplete questionGroup: QuestionGroup)
}

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Here’s how you’ll use these methods:

1. You’ll call questionViewController(_:didCancel:at:) when the user presses the

Cancel button, which you’ve yet to create.

2. You’ll call questionViewController(_:didComplete:) when the user completes all

of the questions.

You also need a property to hold onto the delegate. Add the following right below //
MARK: - Instance Properties:

public weak var delegate: QuestionViewControllerDelegate?

Next, you’ll need to set this delegate. Open

SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and add the following to the end of
prepare(for:sender:):

viewController.delegate = self

This will result in a compiler error, however, as you haven’t made

SelectQuestionGroupViewController conform to QuestionViewControllerDelegate yet.

To fix that, add the following extension to the end of the file:

// MARK: - QuestionViewControllerDelegate
extension SelectQuestionGroupViewController:
QuestionViewControllerDelegate {

public func questionViewController(

_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didCancel questionGroup: QuestionGroup,
at questionIndex: Int) {

navigationController?.popToViewController(self,
animated: true)
}

public func questionViewController(

_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didComplete questionGroup: QuestionGroup) {

navigationController?.popToViewController(self,
animated: true)
}
}

For now you’ll simply pop to the SelectQuestionGroupViewController regardless of

which delegate method is called.

You next need to actually call these delegate methods appropriately.

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Open QuestionViewController.swift and replace viewDidLoad() with the following,

ignoring the compiler error about a missing method for now:

public override func viewDidLoad() {

super.viewDidLoad()
setupCancelButton()
showQuestion()
}

Next, add the following two methods just below viewDidLoad():

private func setupCancelButton() {

let action = #selector(handleCancelPressed(sender:))
let image = UIImage(named: "ic_menu")
navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem =
UIBarButtonItem(image: image,
landscapeImagePhone: nil,
style: .plain,
target: self,
action: action)
}

@objc private func handleCancelPressed(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {

delegate?.questionViewController(
self,
didCancel: questionGroup,
at: questionIndex)
}

This sets a new Cancel button as the navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem, which calls

handleCancelPressed(sender:) when it’s pressed to notify the delegate.

Build and run to try out your new rockin’ cancel button!

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Finally, still in QuestionViewController.swift, scroll down and replace the // TODO: -

Handle this...! comment with the following:

delegate?.questionViewController(self,
didComplete: questionGroup)

Build and run and select the “Basic Phrases” cell, since this has only a few questions.
Press the red X or green check buttons until you reach the end, and check out how the
app now pops back to the SelectQuestionGroupViewController. Nice!

Key points
You learned about the delegation pattern in this chapter, including how to use Apple-
provided delegates and how to create your own delegates as well. Here are the key
points you learned:

• The delegation pattern has three parts: an object needing a delegate, a delegate
protocol and a delegate.

• This pattern allows you to break up large classes and create generic, reusable
components.

• Delegates should be weak properties in the vast majority of use cases.

RabbleWabble is starting to come along! However, there’s still a lot to do to make this
the next App Store success.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the strategy design pattern and
continue building out RabbleWabble.

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5 Chapter 5: Strategy Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The strategy pattern defines a family of interchangeable objects that can be set or
switched at runtime. This pattern has three parts:

• The object using a strategy. This is most often a view controller when the pattern is
used in iOS app development, but it can technically be any kind of object that needs
interchangeable behavior.

• The strategy protocol defines methods that every strategy must implement.

• The strategies are objects that conform to the strategy protocol.

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When should you use it?

Use the strategy pattern when you have two or more different behaviors that are
interchangeable.

This pattern is similar to the delegation pattern: both patterns rely on a protocol
instead of concrete objects for increased flexibility. Consequently, any object that
implements the strategy protocol can be used as a strategy at runtime.

Unlike delegation, the strategy pattern uses a family of objects.

Delegates are often fixed at runtime. For example, the dataSource and delegate for a
UITableView can be set from Interface Builder, and it’s rare for these to change during
runtime.

Strategies, however, are intended to be easily interchangeable at runtime.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory and then
open the Overview page.

You’ll see that Strategy is listed under Behavioral Patterns. This is because the
strategy pattern is about one object using another to do something.

Click on the Strategy link to open that page.

For the code example, consider an app that uses several “movie rating services” such as
Rotten Tomatoes®, IMDb and Metacritic. Instead of writing code for each of these
services directly within a view controller, and likely having complex if-else statements
therein, you can use the strategy pattern to simplify things by creating a protocol that
defines a common API for every service.

First, you need to create a strategy protocol. Add the following right after Code
example:

public protocol MovieRatingStrategy {

// 1
var ratingServiceName: String { get }

// 2
func fetchRating(for movieTitle: String,
success: (_ rating: String, _ review: String) -> ())
}

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1. You’ll use ratingServiceName to display which service provided the rating. For
example, this would return “Rotten Tomatoes.”

2. You’ll use fetchRatingForMovieTitle(_:success:) to fetch movie ratings

asynchronously. In a real app, you’d also likely have a failure closure too, as
networking calls don’t always succeed.

Next, add this implementation for RottenTomatoesClient:

public class RottenTomatoesClient: MovieRatingStrategy {

public let ratingServiceName = "Rotten Tomatoes"

public func fetchRating(

for movieTitle: String,
success: (_ rating: String, _ review: String) -> ()) {

// In a real service, you’d make a network request...

// Here, we just provide dummy values...
let rating = "95%"
let review = "It rocked!"
success(rating, review)
}
}

Then, add this implementation for IMDbClient:

public class IMDbClient: MovieRatingStrategy {

public let ratingServiceName = "IMDb"

public func fetchRating(

for movieTitle: String,
success: (_ rating: String, _ review: String) -> ()) {

let rating = "3 / 10"

let review = """
It was terrible! The audience was throwing rotten
tomatoes!
"""
success(rating, review)
}
}

Since both of these clients conform to MovieRatingStrategy, consuming objects don’t

need to know about either directly. Instead, they can depend on the protocol alone.

For example, add the following code at the end of the file:

import UIKit

public class MoviewRatingViewController: UIViewController {

// MARK: - Properties
public var movieRatingClient: MovieRatingStrategy!

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// MARK: - Outlets
@IBOutlet public var movieTitleTextField: UITextField!
@IBOutlet public var ratingServiceNameLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var ratingLabel: UILabel!
@IBOutlet public var reviewLabel: UILabel!

// MARK: - View Lifecycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
ratingServiceNameLabel.text =
movieRatingClient.ratingServiceName
}

// MARK: - Actions
@IBAction public func searchButtonPressed(sender: Any) {
guard let movieTitle = movieTitleTextField.text
else { return }

movieRatingClient.fetchRating(for: movieTitle) {
(rating, review) in
self.ratingLabel.text = rating
self.reviewLabel.text = review
}
}
}

Whenever this view controller is instantiated within the app (however that happens),
you’d need to set the movieRatingClient. Notice how the view controller doesn’t know
about the concrete implementations of MovieRatingStrategy.

The determination of which MovieRatingStrategy to use can be deferred until runtime,

and this could even be selected by the user if your app allowed that.

What should you be careful about?

Be careful about overusing this pattern. In particular, if a behavior won’t ever change,
it’s okay to put this directly within the consuming view controller or object context. The
trick to this pattern is knowing when to pull out behaviors, and it’s okay to do this lazily
as you determine where it’s needed.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the RabbleWabble app from the previous chapter. If you skipped the
previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate to where you
downloaded the resources for this chapter, and then open starter ▸ RabbleWabble ▸
RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode.

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Instead of always showing the questions in the same order each time, wouldn’t it be
great if they were randomized? However, some users may also want to study the
questions in order. You'll use the strategy pattern to allow both options!

Right-click on the yellow RabbleWabble group, select New Group and name it
Strategies.

Right-click again on the yellow RabbleWabble group and select Sort by Name.

Your File hierarchy should now look like this:

Right-click on your newly-added Strategies group and select New File. Under the iOS
tab, select Swift File and press Next. Enter QuestionStrategy.swift for the name and
press Create.

Replace the contents of QuestionStrategy.swift with the following:

public protocol QuestionStrategy: class {

// 1
var title: String { get }

// 2
var correctCount: Int { get }
var incorrectCount: Int { get }

// 3
func advanceToNextQuestion() -> Bool

// 4
func currentQuestion() -> Question

// 5
func markQuestionCorrect(_ question: Question)
func markQuestionIncorrect(_ question: Question)

// 6
func questionIndexTitle() -> String
}

This creates the protocol at the heart of the strategy pattern you’re going to use.

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Here’s how you’ll use each of the parts of the protocol:

1. title will be the title for which set of questions is selected, such as "Basic
Phrases."

2. correctCount and incorrectCount will return the current number of correct and
incorrect questions, respectively.

3. advanceToNextQuestion() will be used to move onto the next question. If there isn’t
a next question available, this method will return false. Otherwise, it will return
true.

4. currentQuestion() will simply return the current question. Since

advanceToNextQuestion() will prevent the user from advancing beyond the
available questions, currentQuestion() will always return a Question and never be
nil.

5. As their method names imply, markQuestionCorrect(_:) will mark a question

correct, and markQuestionIncorrect(_:) will mark a question incorrect.

6. questionIndexTitle() will return the “index title” for the current question to
indicate progress, such as "1 / 10" for the first question out of ten total.

Create another file under the Strategies group called

SequentialQuestionStrategy.swift. Replace its contents with the following:

public class SequentialQuestionStrategy: QuestionStrategy {

// MARK: - Properties
public var correctCount: Int = 0
public var incorrectCount: Int = 0
private let questionGroup: QuestionGroup
private var questionIndex = 0

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(questionGroup: QuestionGroup) {
self.questionGroup = questionGroup
}

// MARK: - QuestionStrategy
public var title: String {
return questionGroup.title
}

public func currentQuestion() -> Question {

return questionGroup.questions[questionIndex]
}

public func advanceToNextQuestion() -> Bool {

guard questionIndex + 1 <
questionGroup.questions.count else {
return false

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}
questionIndex += 1
return true
}

public func markQuestionCorrect(_ question: Question) {

correctCount += 1
}

public func markQuestionIncorrect(_ question: Question) {

incorrectCount += 1
}

public func questionIndexTitle() -> String {

return "\(questionIndex + 1)/" +
"\(questionGroup.questions.count)"
}
}

SequentialQuestionStrategy takes a QuestionGroup via its designated initializer,

init(questionGroup:), and it essentially functions just like the app currently does; it
goes from one question to the next in the order defined by questionGroup.questions.

Create another file under the Strategies group called RandomQuestionStrategy.swift.

Replace its contents with the following:

// 1
import GameplayKit.GKRandomSource

public class RandomQuestionStrategy: QuestionStrategy {

// MARK: - Properties
public var correctCount: Int = 0
public var incorrectCount: Int = 0
private let questionGroup: QuestionGroup
private var questionIndex = 0
private let questions: [Question]

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(questionGroup: QuestionGroup) {
self.questionGroup = questionGroup

// 2
let randomSource = GKRandomSource.sharedRandom()
self.questions =
randomSource.arrayByShufflingObjects(
in: questionGroup.questions) as! [Question]
}

// MARK: - QuestionStrategy
public var title: String {
return questionGroup.title
}

public func currentQuestion() -> Question {

return questions[questionIndex]

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public func advanceToNextQuestion() -> Bool {

guard questionIndex + 1 < questions.count else {
return false
}
questionIndex += 1
return true
}

public func markQuestionCorrect(_ question: Question) {

correctCount += 1
}

public func markQuestionIncorrect(_ question: Question) {

incorrectCount += 1
}

public func questionIndexTitle() -> String {

return "\(questionIndex + 1)/\(questions.count)"
}
}

Let’s go over the interesting parts:

1. While you could implement randomization logic yourself,

GameplayKit.GKRandomSource already does it for you, and it works really well.
Despite the GameplayKit name, this is actually a fairly small and scoped import
here, so there’s really not a downside to using it.

2. Here you use the GKRandomSource.sharedRandom(), which is the “default” or

singleton instance of GKRandomSource. Another design pattern! Apple frameworks are
full of them, and you’ll learn about this pattern in the next chapter. For now, simply
accept that it gives you an instance of GKRandomSource.

The method arrayByShufflingObjects does exactly as it says: It takes an array and

randomly shuffles the elements. It’s just what you need here! The only downside is
that it returns an NSArray, as Apple is still adopting Swift fully throughout its core
frameworks. However, you can simply cast this to [Question], and you’ll be good to
go!

Next, you need to update QuestionViewController to use a QuestionStrategy instead of

using a QuestionGroup directly.

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Open QuestionViewController.swift and add the following property right below

delegate:

public var questionStrategy: QuestionStrategy! {

didSet {
navigationItem.title = questionStrategy.title
}
}

Replace showQuestion() with the following:

private func showQuestion() {

// 1
let question = questionStrategy.currentQuestion()

questionView.answerLabel.text = question.answer
questionView.promptLabel.text = question.prompt
questionView.hintLabel.text = question.hint

questionView.answerLabel.isHidden = true
questionView.hintLabel.isHidden = true

// 2
questionIndexItem.title =
questionStrategy.questionIndexTitle()
}

Here you use the questionStrategy to get the (1) currentQuestion() and (2)
questionIndexTitle() instead of getting these from the questionGroup.

Replace handleCorrect(_:) and handleIncorrect(_:) with the following:

@IBAction func handleCorrect(_ sender: Any) {

let question = questionStrategy.currentQuestion()
questionStrategy.markQuestionCorrect(question)

questionView.correctCountLabel.text =
String(questionStrategy.correctCount)
showNextQuestion()
}

@IBAction func handleIncorrect(_ sender: Any) {

let question = questionStrategy.currentQuestion()
questionStrategy.markQuestionIncorrect(question)

questionView.incorrectCountLabel.text =
String(questionStrategy.incorrectCount)
showNextQuestion()
}

Here, you again replace uses of questionGroup with questionStrategy instead.

The last method you need to update is showNextQuestion(). However, this is a bit
trickier as you call the delegate method, which takes in a questionGroup parameter.

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You’re faced with a choice now: You can either add questionGroup to the
QuestionStrategy protocol, or update the QuestionViewControllerDelegate method to
use QuestionStrategy instead of QuestionGroup.

When faced with a choice like this in your own apps, you should try to consider the
consequences of each:

• If you expose the QuestionGroup, will this make the overall app design messier and
harder to maintain?

• If you change this to QuestionStrategy instead of QuestionGroup, will you later

actually need the QuestionGroup?

• Do existing classes that implement QuestionViewControllerDelegate use and rely on

the QuestionGroup parameter?

Depending on your answers, you’d need to choose one or the other... fortunately, you
have a 50/50 shot of being right (or wrong)!

In this case, another developer (ahem, one who knows what’s coming up in the next few
chapters), advises that you update the QuestionViewControllerDelegate and change
the QuestionGroup to QuestionStrategy instead.

Replace the existing QuestionViewControllerDelegate protocol with the following

(ignore the compiler errors for now):

protocol QuestionViewControllerDelegate: class {

func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,

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didCancel questionGroup: QuestionStrategy)

func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didComplete questionStrategy: QuestionStrategy)
}

Then, scroll down and replace showNextQuestion() with the following:

private func showNextQuestion() {

guard questionStrategy.advanceToNextQuestion() else {
delegate?.questionViewController(self,
didComplete: questionStrategy)
return
}
showQuestion()
}

Lastly, you also need to replace handleCancelPressed(sender:) with the following:

@objc private func handleCancelPressed(sender: UIBarButtonItem) {

delegate?.questionViewController(self,
didCancel: questionStrategy)
}

Since you’ve updated all places that use questionGroup directly, delete the
questionGroup property.

At this point, you shouldn’t see any compiler errors or warnings on the
QuestionViewController. However, if you try to build and run, you'll still get compiler
errors.

This is because you also need to update the SelectQuestionViewController, which

creates QuestionViewController instances and implements
QuestionViewControllerDelegate.

Open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and replace this line in

prepare(for:sender:):

viewController.questionGroup = selectedQuestionGroup

...with the following:

viewController.questionStrategy = RandomQuestionStrategy(questionGroup:
selectedQuestionGroup)

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Finally, replace the entire extension that implements QuestionViewControllerDelegate

with the following:

extension SelectQuestionGroupViewController:
QuestionViewControllerDelegate {
func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didCancel questionGroup: QuestionStrategy) {
navigationController?.popToViewController(self,
animated: true)
}

func questionViewController(
_ viewController: QuestionViewController,
didComplete questionGroup: QuestionStrategy) {
navigationController?.popToViewController(self,
animated: true)
}
}

Build and run your project. Select any cell, press the green check or red X buttons a few
times, press Back, then press the same cell again and repeating the process. You should
see that the questions are now randomized!

Switch back to SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift in Xcode, and replace this

line within prepare(for:sender:):

viewController.questionStrategy = RandomQuestionStrategy(questionGroup:
selectedQuestionGroup)

...with this instead:

viewController.questionStrategy =
SequentialQuestionStrategy(questionGroup: selectedQuestionGroup)

Build and run and try working through the same set of questions again. This time, they
should now be in the same order.

How cool is that? You can now easily swap out different strategies as necessary!

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Key points
You learned about the strategy pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The strategy pattern defines a family of interchangeable objects that can be set or
switched at runtime.

• This pattern has three parts: an object using a strategy, a strategy protocol, and a
family of strategy objects.

• The strategy pattern is similar to the delegation pattern: Both patterns use a
protocol for flexibility. Unlike the delegation pattern, however, strategies are meant
to be switched at runtime, whereas delegates are usually fixed.

You've laid the groundwork for Rabble Wabble to switch question strategies at runtime.
However, you haven't actually created a means for the user to do this while running the
app just yet! There's another pattern you'll use to hold onto user preferences like this:
the singleton design pattern.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the singleton design pattern and
continue building out Rabble Wabble.

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6 Chapter 6: Singleton
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The singleton pattern restricts a class to only one instance. Every reference to the class
refers to the same underlying instance. This pattern is extremely common in iOS app
development, as Apple makes extensive use of it.

The “singleton plus” pattern is also common, which provides a shared singleton
instance that allows other instances to be created, too.

When should you use it?

Use the singleton pattern when having more than one instance of a class would cause
problems, or when it just wouldn’t be logical.

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Use the singleton plus pattern if a shared instance is useful most of the time, but you
also want to allow custom instances to be created. An example of this is FileManager,
which handles everything to do with filesystem access. There is a “default” instance
which is a singleton, or you can create your own. You would usually create your own if
you’re using it on a background thread.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory and then
open the Overview page.

You’ll see that Singleton is listed under Creational Patterns. This is because singleton
is all about creating a shared instance.

Click on the Singleton link to open that page.

Both singleton and singleton plus are common throughout Apple frameworks. For
example, UIApplication is a true singleton.

Add the following right after Code example:

import UIKit

// MARK: - Singleton
let app = UIApplication.shared
// let app2 = UIApplication()

If you try to uncomment the let app2 line, you’ll get a compiler error! UIApplication
doesn’t allow more than one instance to be created. This proves it’s a singleton! You
can also create your own singleton class. Add the following right after the previous
code:

public class MySingleton {

// 1
static let shared = MySingleton()
// 2
private init() { }
}
// 3
let mySingleton = MySingleton.shared
// 4
// let mySingleton2 = MySingleton()

Here’s what you did:

1. You first declare a public static property called shared, which is the singleton
instance.

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2. You mark init as private to prevent the creation of additional instances.

3. You get the singleton instance by calling MySingleton.shared.

4. You’ll get a compiler error if you try to create additional instances of MySingleton.

Next, add the following singleton plus example below your MySingleton example:

// MARK: - Singleton Plus

let defaultFileManager = FileManager.default
let customFileManager = FileManager()

FileManager provides a default instance, which is its singleton property.

You’re also allowed to create new instances of FileManager. This proves that it’s using
the singleton plus pattern!

It’s easy to create your own singleton plus class, too. Add the following below the
FileManager example:

public class MySingletonPlus {

// 1
static let shared = MySingletonPlus()
// 2
public init() { }
}
// 3
let singletonPlus = MySingletonPlus.shared

// 4
let singletonPlus2 = MySingletonPlus()

This is very similar to a true singleton:

1. You declare a shared static property just like a singleton. This is sometimes called
default instead, but it’s simply a preference for whichever name you prefer.

2. Unlike a true singleton, you declare init as public to allow additional instances to
be created.

3. You get the singleton instance by calling MySingletonPlus.shared.

4. You can also create new instances, too.

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What should you be careful about?

The singleton pattern is very easy to overuse.

If you encounter a situation where you’re tempted to use a singleton, first consider
other ways to accomplish your task.

For example, singletons are not appropriate if you’re simply trying to pass information
from one view controller to another. Instead, consider passing models via an initializer
or property.

If you determine you actually do need a singleton, consider whether a singleton plus
makes more sense.

Will having more than one instance cause problems? Will it ever be useful to have
custom instances? Your answers will determine whether its better for you to use a true
singleton or singleton plus.

A very most common reason why singletons are problematic is testing. If you have state
being stored in a global object like a singleton then order of tests can matter, and it can
be painful to mock them. Both of these reasons make testing a pain.

Lastly, beware of “code smell” indicating your use case isn’t appropriate as a singleton
at all. For example, if you often need many custom instances, your use case may be
better as a regular object.

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Tutorial project
You’ll continue building Rabble Wabble from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder, navigate to
where you downloaded the resources for this chapter and open
starter\RabbleWabble\RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode.

In the previous chapter, you hardcoded which strategy to use for showing questions:
either randomized or sequential. That means it’s not possible for the user to change
this. Your task is to let the user choose how they want the questions displayed.

Adding the App settings singleton

The first thing you need to do is to have somewhere to store app settings. You’re going
to create a singleton for this!

Right-click on Models in the File hierarchy and select New File.... Under the iOS tab,
select Swift File and press Next. Enter AppSettings.swift for the name and click
Create.

Replace the contents of AppSettings.swift with the following:

import Foundation

public class AppSettings {

// MARK: - Static Properties
public static let shared = AppSettings()

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

private init() { }
}

Here, you create a new class called AppSettings, which is a singleton.

You’ll ultimately use this to manage app-wide settings. For Rabble Wabble’s purposes, it
doesn’t make sense to have multiple, app-wide settings, so you make this a true
singleton, instead of a singleton plus.

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Next, add the following code to the end of the file, after the final closing brace for
AppSettings:

// MARK: - QuestionStrategyType
public enum QuestionStrategyType: Int, CaseIterable {

case random
case sequential

// MARK: - Instance Methods

public func title() -> String {
switch self {
case .random:
return "Random"
case .sequential:
return "Sequential"
}
}

public func questionStrategy(

for questionGroup: QuestionGroup) -> QuestionStrategy {
switch self {
case .random:
return RandomQuestionStrategy(
questionGroup: questionGroup)
case .sequential:
return SequentialQuestionStrategy(
questionGroup: questionGroup)
}
}
}

Here, you declared a new enum named QuestionStrategyType, which has cases for every
possible type of QuestionStrategy in the app.

Since you’ve used the CaseIterable protocol available since Swift 4.2 you also get a free
static property generated by the compiler automatically called allCases to use later to
display a listing of all possible strategies. When doing so, you’ll use title() for the title
text to represent the strategy.

You’ll use questionStrategy(for:) to create a QuestionStrategy from the selected

QuestionStrategyType.

However, you actually still haven’t addressed the main issue at hand: letting the user
set the desired strategy type.

Add the following code inside AppSettings, right after the opening class curly brace:

// MARK: - Keys
private struct Keys {
static let questionStrategy = "questionStrategy"
}

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You’ll use strings as the keys to store settings in UserDefaults. Instead of hardcoding
the string "questionStrategy" everywhere, you declare a new struct named Keys to give
a named and typed way of referencing such strings.

Next, add the following after the shared property:

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public var questionStrategyType: QuestionStrategyType {
get {
let rawValue = userDefaults.integer(
forKey: Keys.questionStrategy)
return QuestionStrategyType(rawValue: rawValue)!
} set {
userDefaults.set(newValue.rawValue,
forKey: Keys.questionStrategy)
}
}
private let userDefaults = UserDefaults.standard

You’ll use questionStrategyType to hold onto the user’s desired strategy. Instead of just
a simple property, which would be lost whenever the user terminates the app, you
override the getter and setter to get and set the integer value using userDefaults.

userDefaults is set to UserDefaults.standard, which is another singleton plus

provided by Apple! You use this to store key-value pairs that persist across app
launches.

Finally, add the following to AppSettings, just after the code you just added:

// MARK: - Instance Methods

public func questionStrategy(
for questionGroup: QuestionGroup) -> QuestionStrategy {
return questionStrategyType.questionStrategy(
for: questionGroup)
}

This is a convenience method to get the QuestionStrategy from the selected

questionStrategyType.

Great job! This completes AppSettings.

Selecting the strategy

You next need to create a new view controller so the user can select their desired
question strategy.

Right-click on Controllers in the File hierarchy and select New file.... Under the iOS
tab, select Swift File and press Next. Enter AppSettingsViewController.swift for the
name and press Create.

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Replace the contents of AppSettingsViewController.swift with the following:

import UIKit

// 1
public class AppSettingsViewController: UITableViewController {
// 2
// MARK: - Properties
public let appSettings = AppSettings.shared
private let cellIdentifier = "basicCell"

// MARK: - View Life Cycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()

// 3
tableView.tableFooterView = UIView()

// 4
tableView.register(UITableViewCell.self,
forCellReuseIdentifier: cellIdentifier)
}
}

Here’s what you’re doing above:

1. First, you declare AppSettingsTableViewController as a subclass of

UITableViewController.

2. You create a property for appSettings, which you’ll use to get and set the
questionStrategyType.

3. You set the tableFooterView to a new UIView. This way, you won’t have extra blank
cells at the bottom of the table view.

4. You also register UITableViewCell.self for the cellReuseIdentifier of

cellIdentifier. This ensures you’ll always get back a UITableViewCell instance
whenever you call tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier:for:).

Next, add the following code at the end of the file, after the closing curly brace of the
class:

// MARK: - UITableViewDataSource
extension AppSettingsViewController {

public override func tableView(

_ tableView: UITableView,
numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {

// 1
return QuestionStrategyType.allCases.count
}

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public override func tableView(

_ tableView: UITableView,
cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {

let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(

withIdentifier: cellIdentifier, for: indexPath)

// 2
let questionStrategyType =
QuestionStrategyType.allCases[indexPath.row]

// 3
cell.textLabel?.text = questionStrategyType.title()

// 4
if appSettings.questionStrategyType ==
questionStrategyType {
cell.accessoryType = .checkmark
} else {
cell.accessoryType = .none
}
return cell
}
}

Here’s what you’re doing:

1. First, you override tableView(_:numberOfRowsInSection:) to return

QuestionStrategyType.allCases.count, which is the number of strategies you have.

2. Next, you override tableView(_:cellForRowAt:) and again use

QuestionStrategyType.allCases to get questionStrategyType for the given
indexPath.row.

3. Set the label to be the name of that strategy.

4. Finally, if the appSettings.questionStrategyType is equal to the given

questionStrategyType, it’s the currently selected strategy, which you denote with a
check mark.

Next, add this last extension to the end of the file, after the last closing curly brace:

// MARK: - UITableViewDelegate
extension AppSettingsViewController {
public override func tableView(
_ tableView: UITableView,
didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {

let questionStrategyType =
QuestionStrategyType.allCases[indexPath.row]
appSettings.questionStrategyType = questionStrategyType
tableView.reloadData()
}

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Whenever a cell is selected, you get the questionStrategyType for the given cell’s
indexPath.row, set this as appSettings.questionStrategyType and reload the table
view.

Nice work! This takes care of the code for letting the user select the question strategy.

You now need a way for the user to get to this view controller.

From the File hierarchy, open Views ▸ Main.storyboard. Next, press and hold the
Object Library button and select Show Media Library.

Drag and drop the ic_settings image onto the Select Question Group scene’s left
navigation bar item.

Next, select the Object Library button, enter table view controller into the search
field and drag and drop a new Table View Controller just below the Select Question
Group scene.

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Select the yellow class object for the new table view scene, open the Identity
Inspector and set the Class as AppSettingsViewController.

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Next, open the Attributes Inspector and set the Title as App Settings.

Then, Control-drag and drop from the Settings button onto the App Settings scene.
In the dialog that appears, select Show. This creates a new segue to this scene.

Lastly, select the existing prototype cell on the App Settings scene, and press Delete.
This isn’t strictly required, but you’re not going to use it and can rid of a compiler
warning by deleting it.

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Build and run the app, tap on the Settings button, and you’ll see your brand-spanking-
new AppSettingsViewController!

Try selecting an option and navigating to and from this screen. You’ll see your selection
persist!

If you tap a cell from the Select Question Group listing, however, it may not actually
reflect your choice. What’s up with that?

Remember how you hardcoded the QuestionStrategy used in the previous chapter? Yep,
you also need to update this code to use your new AppSettings instead!

Open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift, and add the following property

right after // MARK: - Properties:

private let appSettings = AppSettings.shared

Next, scroll down to prepare(for:) and replace:

viewController.questionStrategy =
SequentialQuestionStrategy(
questionGroup: selectedQuestionGroup)

...with the following:

viewController.questionStrategy =
appSettings.questionStrategy(for: selectedQuestionGroup)

Build and run the app, and your app will now always use the correct QuestionStrategy.

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Key points
You learned about the singleton pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The singleton pattern restricts a class to only one instance.

• The singleton plus pattern provides a “default” shared instance but also allows other
instances to be created too.

• Be careful about overusing this pattern! Before you create a singleton, consider other
ways to solve the problem without it. If a singleton really is best, prefer to use a
singleton plus over a singleton.

RabbleWabble is really coming along! However, it’s still missing a key functionality: the
ability to remember your score.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the memento design pattern and add
this functionality to the app.

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Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The memento pattern allows an object to be saved and restored. It has three parts:

1. The originator is the object to be saved or restored.

2. The memento represents a stored state.

3. The caretaker requests a save from the originator and receives a memento in
response. The caretaker is responsible for persisting the memento and, later on,
providing the memento back to the originator to restore the originator’s state.

While not strictly required, iOS apps typically use an Encoder to encode an originator’s
state into a memento, and a Decoder to decode a memento back to an originator. This
allows encoding and decoding logic to be reused across originators. For example,
JSONEncoder and JSONDecoder allow an object to be encoded into and decoded from
JSON data respectively.

When should you use it?

Use the memento pattern whenever you want to save and later restore an object’s state.

For example, you can use this pattern to implement a save game system, where the
originator is the game state (such as level, health, number of lives, etc), the memento is
saved data, and the caretaker is the gaming system.

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You can also persist an array of mementos, representing a stack of previous states. You
can use this to implement features such as undo/redo stacks in IDEs or graphics
software.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, and then open the
Overview page.

You’ll see Memento is listed under Behavioral Patterns. This is because this pattern is
all about save and restoration behavior. Click on the Memento link to open that page.

You’ll create a simple gaming system for this example. First, you need to define the
originator. Enter the following right after Code Example:

import Foundation

// MARK: - Originator
public class Game: Codable {

public class State: Codable {

public var attemptsRemaining: Int = 3
public var level: Int = 1
public var score: Int = 0
}
public var state = State()

public func rackUpMassivePoints() {

state.score += 9002
}

public func monstersEatPlayer() {

state.attemptsRemaining -= 1
}
}

Here, you define a Game: it has an internal State that holds onto game properties, and it
has methods to handle in-game actions. You also declare Game and State conform to
Codable.

What’s Codable? Great question!

Apple introduced Codable in Swift 4. Any type that conforms to Codable can, in Apple’s
words, “convert itself into and out of an external representation.” Essentially, it’s a type
that can save and restore itself. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s exactly what you want the
originator to be able to do.

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Since all of the properties that Game and State use already conform to Codable the
compiler automatically generates all required Codable protocol methods for you.
String, Int, Double and most other Swift-provided types conform to Codable out of the
box. How awesome is that?

More formally, Codable is a typealias that combines the Encodable and Decodable
protocols. Like so:

typealias Codable = Decodable & Encodable

Types that are Encodable can be converted to an external representation by an Encoder.

The actual type of the external representation depends on the concrete Encoder you
use. Fortunately, Foundation provides several default encoders for you, including
JSONEncoder for converting objects to JSON data.

Types that are Decodable can be converted from an external representation by a

Decoder. Foundation has you covered for decoders too, including JSONDecoder to convert
objects from JSON data.

Great! Now that you’ve got the theory under your belt, you can continue coding.

You next need a memento. Add the following after the previous code:

// MARK: - Memento
typealias GameMemento = Data

Technically, you don’t need to declare this line at all. Rather, it’s here to inform you the
GameMemento is actually Data. This will be generated by the Encoder on save, and used by
the Decoder on restoration.

Next, you need a caretaker. Add the following after the previous code:

// MARK: - CareTaker
public class GameSystem {

// 1
private let decoder = JSONDecoder()
private let encoder = JSONEncoder()
private let userDefaults = UserDefaults.standard

// 2
public func save(_ game: Game, title: String) throws {
let data = try encoder.encode(game)
userDefaults.set(data, forKey: title)
}

// 3
public func load(title: String) throws -> Game {
guard let data = userDefaults.data(forKey: title),
let game = try? decoder.decode(Game.self, from: data)

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else {
throw Error.gameNotFound
}
return game
}

public enum Error: String, Swift.Error {

case gameNotFound
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first declare properties for decoder, encoder and userDefaults. You’ll use
decoder to decode Games from Data, encoder to encode Games to Data, and
userDefaults to persist Data to disk. Even if the app is re-launched, saved Game data
will still be available.

2. save(_:title:) encapsulates the save logic. You first use encoder to encode the
passed-in game. This operation may throw an error, so you must prefix it with try.
You then save the resulting data under the given title within userDefaults.

3. load(title:) likewise encapsulates the load logic. You first get data from
userDefaults for the given title. You then use decoder to decode the Game from the
data. If either operation fails, you throw a custom error for Error.gameNotFound. If
both operations succeed, you return the resulting game.

You’re ready for the fun part: using the classes!

Add the following to the end of the playground page:

// MARK: - Example
var game = Game()
game.monstersEatPlayer()
game.rackUpMassivePoints()

Here you simulate playing a game: the player gets eaten by a monster, but she makes a
comeback and racks up massive points!

Add the following code next:

// Save Game
let gameSystem = GameSystem()
try gameSystem.save(game, title: "Best Game Ever")

Here, you simulate the player triumphantly saving her game, likely boasting to her
friends shortly thereafter.

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Of course, she will want to try to beat her own record, so she’ll start a new Game. Add the
following code next:

// New Game
game = Game()
print("New Game Score: \(game.state.score)")

Here, you create a new Game instance and print out the game.state.score. This should
print the following to the console:

New Game Score: 0

This proves the default value is set for game.state.score.

The player can also resume her previous game. Add the following code next:

// Load Game
game = try! gameSystem.load(title: "Best Game Ever")
print("Loaded Game Score: \(game.state.score)")

Here, you load the player’s previous Game, and print the game’s score. You should see
this in your output:

Loaded Game Score: 9002

Keep on winning, player!

What should you be careful about?

Be careful when adding or removing Codable properties: both encoding and decoding
can throw an error. If you force unwrap these calls using try! and you’re missing any
required data, your app will crash!

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To mitigate this problem, avoid using try! unless you’re absolutely sure the operation
will succeed. You should also plan ahead when changing your models.

For example, you can version your models or use a versioned database. However, you’ll
need to carefully consider how to handle version upgrades. You might choose to delete
old data whenever you encounter a new version, create an upgrade path to convert from
old to new data, or even use a combination of these approaches.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the RabbleWabble app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open starter ▸
RabbleWabble ▸ RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode.

You’ll use the memento pattern to add an important app feature: the ability to save
QuestionGroup scores.

Open QuestionGroup.swift, and add the following right after the opening class curly
brace:

public class Score: Codable {

public var correctCount: Int = 0
public var incorrectCount: Int = 0
public init() { }
}

Here you a create a new class called Score, which you’ll use to hold on to score info.

Then, add the following property right after questions, ignoring the compiler errors for
now:

public var score: Score

To fix the compiler errors, you need to declare a new initializer. Add the following right
before the ending class curly brace:

public init(questions: [Question],

score: Score = Score(),
title: String) {
self.questions = questions
self.score = score
self.title = title
}

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This initializer has a default value for the score property, being a blank Score object.
That means everywhere in the app that was creating a QuestionGroup before using
init(questions:title:) can still do so and they will get this blank Score object created
for them.

Lastly, replace public struct QuestionGroup with the following, again, ignoring the
resulting compiler error for now:

public class QuestionGroup: Codable

QuestionGroup will act as the originator. You change this from a struct to a class to
change this to a reference type instead of a value type, so you can pass around
QuestionGroup objects instead of copying them. You also make it conform to Codable to
enable encoding and decoding.

Since Question doesn’t currently conform to Codable, the compiler can’t generate the
required protocol methods automatically for you. Fortunately, this is easy to fix.

Open Question.swift and replace public struct Question with this:

public class Question: Codable

You change Question from a struct to a class to make this a reference type, and you
also make it conform to Codable.

You also need to add an initializer for this class. Add the following before the closing
class curly brace:

public init(answer: String, hint: String?, prompt: String) {

self.answer = answer
self.hint = hint
self.prompt = prompt
}

Build your project to verify you’ve resolved all of the compiler errors.

Next, right-click on the yellow RabbleWabble group, select New Group and name it
Caretakers.

Right-click again on the yellow RabbleWabble group and select Sort by Name.

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Your File hierarchy should now look like this:

Right-click on your newly-added Caretakers group and select New File. Under the iOS
tab, select Swift File and click Next. Enter DiskCaretaker.swift for the name and click
Create.

Replace the contents of DiskCaretaker.swift with the following:

import Foundation

public final class DiskCaretaker {

public static let decoder = JSONDecoder()
public static let encoder = JSONEncoder()
}

DiskCaretaker will ultimately provide methods for saving and retrieving Codable
objects from the device’s Documents directory. You’ll use JSONEncoder to encode
objects into JSON data and JSONDecoder to decode from JSON data into objects.

Add the next block of code before the closing class curly brace:

public static func createDocumentURL(

withFileName fileName: String) -> URL {
let fileManager = FileManager.default
let url = fileManager.urls(for: .documentDirectory,
in: .userDomainMask).first!
return url.appendingPathComponent(fileName)
.appendingPathExtension("json")
}

You’ll use this method to create a document URL given a fileName. This method simply
finds the Documents directory and then appends the given file name.

Add this method right before createDocumentURL(withFileName:):

// 1
public static func save<T: Codable>(
_ object: T, to fileName: String) throws {
do {

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// 2
let url = createDocumentURL(withFileName: fileName)
// 3
let data = try encoder.encode(object)
// 4
try data.write(to: url, options: .atomic)
} catch (let error) {
// 5
print("Save failed: Object: `\(object)`, " +
"Error: `\(error)`")
throw error
}
}

You’ll use this method to save Codable objects.

Here’s how it works, line-by-line:

1. You first declare a generic method that takes any object that conforms to Codable.

2. You then call createDocumentURL to create a document URL for the given fileName.

3. You use encoder to encode the object into data. This operation may throw an error,
so you prefix it with try.

4. You call data.write to write the data to the given url. You use the atomic operator
to instruct iOS to create a temporary file and then move it to the desired path. This
has a small performance cost, but it ensures the file data will never be corrupted. It’s
possible this operation may throw an error, so you must prefix it with try.

5. If you catch an error, you print the object and error to the console and then throw
the error.

Next, add these methods right after save(_:to:):

// 1
public static func retrieve<T: Codable>(
_ type: T.Type, from fileName: String) throws -> T {
let url = createDocumentURL(withFileName: fileName)
return try retrieve(T.self, from: url)
}

// 2
public static func retrieve<T: Codable>(
_ type: T.Type, from url: URL) throws -> T {
do {
// 3
let data = try Data(contentsOf: url)
// 4
return try decoder.decode(T.self, from: data)
} catch (let error) {
// 5
print("Retrieve failed: URL: `\(url)`, Error: `\(error)`")

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throw error
}
}

Here’s what’s going on:

1. You declare a method for retrieving objects given a type and fileName, which is a
String. This method first creates a file URL and calls retrieve(_:from:). You’ll
soon see how it can be useful to pass either a String or URL at times to retrieve
persisted objects.

2. You also declare a method which takes a URL rather than a String, which does the
actual loading. The previous method simply calls through to this one. You’ll need
both, so both are public.

3. Here you attempt to create a Data instance from the given file url. It’s possible this
operation may fail, so you prefix this call with try.

4. You then use decoder to decode the object into data. This operation may throw an
error, so you prefix it with try.

5. If you catch an error, you print the url and error to the console and then throw
the error.

Great start! You’ll soon see how useful this helper class is. However, you need to create
another file first.

Right-click on the Caretakers group and select New File. Under the iOS tab, select
Swift File and click Next. Enter QuestionGroupCaretaker.swift for the name and click
Create.

Replace the contents of QuestionGroupCaretaker.swift with the following:

import Foundation

// 1
public final class QuestionGroupCaretaker {

// MARK: - Properties
// 2
private let fileName = "QuestionGroupData"
public var questionGroups: [QuestionGroup] = []
public var selectedQuestionGroup: QuestionGroup!

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init() {
// 3
loadQuestionGroups()
}

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// 4
private func loadQuestionGroups() {
if let questionGroups =
try? DiskCaretaker.retrieve([QuestionGroup].self,
from: fileName) {
self.questionGroups = questionGroups
} else {
let bundle = Bundle.main
let url = bundle.url(forResource: fileName,
withExtension: "json")!
self.questionGroups = try!
DiskCaretaker.retrieve([QuestionGroup].self, from: url)
try! save()
}
}

// MARK: - Instance Methods

// 5
public func save() throws {
try DiskCaretaker.save(questionGroups, to: fileName)
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You declare a new class called QuestionGroupCaretaker. You’ll use this to save and
retrieve QuestionGroup objects.

2. You declare three properties: fileName defines the file where you’ll save and
retrieve QuestionGroup objects; questionGroups will hold onto the QuestionGroups
that are in use; and selectedQuestionGroup will hold onto whichever selection the
user makes.

3. You call loadQuestionGroups() inside init(), which loads the question groups.

4. You perform the retrieve actions within loadQuestionGroups(). First, you attempt to
load QuestionGroups from the user’s Documents directory using fileName. If the file
hasn’t been created, such as the first time the app is launched, this will fail and
return nil instead.

In the case of a failure, you load the QuestionGroups from Bundle.main and then call
save() to write this file to the user’s Documents directory.

However, you haven’t added QuestionGroupsData.json to the main bundle yet.

You’ll need to do this next.

Open Finder and navigate to where you have the projects downloaded for this chapter.
Alongside the Starter and Final directories, you’ll see a Resources directory that
contains QuestionGroupData.json.

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Position the Finder window above Xcode and drag and drop QuestionGroupData.json
into the Resources group like so:

In the new window that appears, make sure Copy items if needed is checked and click
Finish to copy the file.

Next, you actually need to use QuestionGroupCaretaker.

Open SelectQuestionGroupViewController and replace the var questionGroups line

with the following:

private let questionGroupCaretaker = QuestionGroupCaretaker()

private var questionGroups: [QuestionGroup] {
return questionGroupCaretaker.questionGroups
}

Replace the var selectedQuestionGroup line with the following:

private var selectedQuestionGroup: QuestionGroup! {

get { return questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup }
set { questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup = newValue }
}

Since you’re no longer using QuestionGroupData.swift, select this file within the File
navigator and click Delete. In the new window that appears, select Move to Trash.

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Build and run, and verify everything works as before.

The very first time you run the app, you’ll see an error printed containing this text:

The file "QuestionGroupData.json" couldn’t be opened because there is no

such file.

This is because loadQuestionGroups() in QuestionGroupCaretaker tries to read

QuestionGroupData.json from the Documents directory, but this file won’t exist when
the app is first launched. However, the app handles this gracefully; it reads
QuestionGroupData.json from the main bundle and saves it to the Documents directory
for future reads.

Build and run again, and you shouldn’t see any errors logged to the console. Everything
works so far. However, what about saving the QuestionGroup’s score?

Open SequentialQuestionStrategy.swift and replace these two lines:

public var correctCount: Int = 0

public var incorrectCount: Int = 0

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With this:

public var correctCount: Int {

get { return questionGroup.score.correctCount }
set { questionGroup.score.correctCount = newValue }
}
public var incorrectCount: Int {
get { return questionGroup.score.incorrectCount }
set { questionGroup.score.incorrectCount = newValue }
}

Rather than using stored properties for correctCount and incorrectCount, you get and
set the questionGroup.score.correctCount and questionGroup.score.incorrectCount
respectively.

But wait, isn’t there similar logic in RandomQuestionStrategy.swift too? Yes, there is!
While you could try to copy this logic over as well, you’d end up duplicating a lot of
code.

This brings up an important point: when you add new design patterns and functionality
to your app, you’ll need to refactor your code occasionally. In this case, you’ll pull out a
base class to move your shared logic into.

Right-click on the Strategies group and select New file.... Under the iOS tab, select
Swift File and click Next. Enter BaseQuestionStrategy.swift for the name and click
Create.

Replace the contents of BaseQuestionStrategy.swift with the following:

public class BaseQuestionStrategy: QuestionStrategy {

// MARK: - Properties
// 1
public var correctCount: Int {
get { return questionGroup.score.correctCount }
set { questionGroup.score.correctCount = newValue }
}
public var incorrectCount: Int {
get { return questionGroup.score.incorrectCount }
set { questionGroup.score.incorrectCount = newValue }
}
private var questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker

// 2
private var questionGroup: QuestionGroup {
return questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup
}
private var questionIndex = 0
private let questions: [Question]

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 3

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public init(questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker,

questions: [Question]) {
self.questionGroupCaretaker = questionGroupCaretaker
self.questions = questions

// 4
self.questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup.score =
QuestionGroup.Score()
}

// MARK: - QuestionStrategy
public var title: String {
return questionGroup.title
}

public func currentQuestion() -> Question {

return questions[questionIndex]
}

public func advanceToNextQuestion() -> Bool {

guard questionIndex + 1 < questions.count else {
return false
}
questionIndex += 1
return true
}

public func markQuestionCorrect(_ question: Question) {

correctCount += 1
}

public func markQuestionIncorrect(_ question: Question) {

incorrectCount += 1
}

public func questionIndexTitle() -> String {

return "\(questionIndex + 1)/\(questions.count)"
}
}

If you compare this to RandomQuestionStrategy, you’ll find this is very similar. However,
there are a few important differences:

1. You use the underlying questionGroup.score.correctCount and

questionGroup.score.incorrectCount instead of stored properties.

2. The questionGroup is actually a computed property, which returns

questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup.

3. Here, you’ve added a new initializer to accept a QuestionGroupCaretaker and

Questions instead of a QuestionGroup. You’ll use questionGroupCaretaker to persist
changes to disk, and questions will be an ordered array for displaying the Question.

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4. Here, you reset the score to a new instance, Score(), so scoring always starts over
whenever you start a QuestionGroup.

The rest of the code is pretty much what already existed in RandomQuestionStrategy
and SequentialQuestionStrategy.

You next need to refactor RandomQuestionStrategy to subclass BaseQuestionStrategy.

Open RandomQuestionStrategy.swift and replace its contents with the following,

ignoring the resulting compiler errors for now:

import GameplayKit.GKRandomSource

public class RandomQuestionStrategy: BaseQuestionStrategy {

public convenience init(

questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker) {
let questionGroup =
questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup!
let randomSource = GKRandomSource.sharedRandom()
let questions = randomSource.arrayByShufflingObjects(
in: questionGroup.questions) as! [Question]
self.init(questionGroupCaretaker: questionGroupCaretaker,
questions: questions)
}
}

This code is much shorter than before, isn’t it? This is because most of the logic is
handled within BaseQuestionStrategy.

RandomQuestionStrategy simply shuffles the questions in a random order and passes

the resulting questions array to init(questionGroupCaretaker:questions:), which is
the initializer on the base class.

Next, open SequentialQuestionStrategy.swift and replace its contents with the

following; again, ignore any compiler errors in other files for now:

public class SequentialQuestionStrategy: BaseQuestionStrategy {

public convenience init(

questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker) {
let questionGroup =
questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup!
let questions = questionGroup.questions
self.init(questionGroupCaretaker: questionGroupCaretaker,
questions: questions)
}
}

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SequentialQuestionStrategy simply passes questions in the same order as they are

defined on questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup! to
init(questionGroupCaretaker:questions:).

Next, you need to fix the compiler errors caused by these changes.

Open AppSettings.swift and replace questionStrategy(for:) inside of

QuestionStrategyType with the following, ignoring any resulting compiler errors:

public func questionStrategy(

for questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker)
-> QuestionStrategy {
switch self {
case .random:
return RandomQuestionStrategy(
questionGroupCaretaker: questionGroupCaretaker)
case .sequential:
return SequentialQuestionStrategy(
questionGroupCaretaker: questionGroupCaretaker)
}
}

You change this to accept a QuestionGroupCaretaker instead of a QuestionGroup, so you

can use the convenience initializers you just created on RandomQuestionStrategy and
SequentialQuestionStrategy.

Next, replace questionStrategy(for:) inside of AppSettings with the following; again,

ignore the resulting compiler errors for now:

public func questionStrategy(

for questionGroupCaretaker: QuestionGroupCaretaker)
-> QuestionStrategy {
return questionStrategyType.questionStrategy(
for: questionGroupCaretaker)
}

Likewise, you update this method to take a QuestionGroupCaretaker instead of a

QuestionGroup.

There’s one more compiler error you need to fix. Open

SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and replace this line:

viewController.questionStrategy =
appSettings.questionStrategy(for: selectedQuestionGroup)

with this:

viewController.questionStrategy =
appSettings.questionStrategy(for: questionGroupCaretaker)

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Build and run and select a QuestionGroup cell to verify everything works.

Awesome! You’re finally ready to save the scores from QuestionGroups.

Open BaseQuestionStrategy.swift and add the following to advanceToNextQuestion(),

right after this method’s opening curly brace:

try? questionGroupCaretaker.save()

This performs a save whenever the next question is requested.

To verify this works, open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and add the

following code at the end of the main SelectQuestionGroupViewController class
definition:

// MARK: - View Lifecycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
questionGroups.forEach {
print("\($0.title): " +
"correctCount \($0.score.correctCount), " +
"incorrectCount \($0.score.incorrectCount)"
)

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}
}

Here, you print the title, score.correctCount and score.incorrectCount for each
QuestionGroup.

Build and run; select any QuestionGroup cell you’d like; and tap the green checkmark
and red X buttons a few times to mark the questions as correct and incorrect.

Then, stop the app and build and run again.

You should see output like this in the console:

Hiragana: correctCount 22, incorrectCount 8

Katakana: correctCount 0, incorrectCount 0
Basic Phrases: correctCount 0, incorrectCount 0
Numbers: correctCount 0, incorrectCount 0

Excellent! This shows the scores are saved across app launches.

Key points
You learned about the memento pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The memento pattern allows an object to be saved and restored. It involves three
types: the originator, memento and caretaker.

• The originator is the object to be saved; the memento is a saved state; and the
caretaker handles, persists and retrieves mementos.

• iOS provides Encoder for encoding a memento to, and Decoder for decoding from, a
memento. This allows encoding and decoding logic to be used across originators.

Rabble Wabble is really coming along, and you can now save and restore scores!
However, the app doesn’t show the score to the user yet. You’ll use another pattern to
do this: The observer pattern.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the observer design pattern and continue
building out Rabble Wabble.

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8 Chapter 8: Observer
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The observer pattern lets one object observe changes on another object. You’ll learn
two different ways to implement the observer pattern in this chapter: Using key value
observation (KVO), and using an Observable wrapper.

This pattern involves two main objects:

1. The subject is the object that’s being observed.

2. The observer is the object doing the observing.

Unfortunately, Swift 4 doesn’t yet have language-level support for KVO. Instead, you’re
required to import Foundation and subclass NSObject, which uses the Objective-C
runtime to implement KVO. What if you don’t want to, or can’t subclass NSObject? You
can write your own Observable wrapper class instead!

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You’ll get hands-on practice doing both the KVO and the Observable wrapper
implementations of the observer pattern in this chapter.

When should you use it?

Use the observer pattern whenever you want to receive changes made on another
object.

This pattern is often used with MVC, where the view controller is the observer and the
model is the subject. This allows the model to communicate changes back to the view
controller without needing to know anything about the view controller’s type. Thereby,
different view controllers can use and observe changes on a shared model type.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, and then open the
Overview page.

You’ll see Observer is listed under Behavioral Patterns. This is because Observer is
about one object observing another object.

Click on the Observer link to open that page.

Then, enter the following below Code Example:

import Foundation

// MARK: - KVO
// 1
@objcMembers public class KVOUser: NSObject {
// 2
dynamic var name: String

// 3
public init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}
}

Here’s what you did in detail:

1. KVOUser is the NSObject subject you’ll observe. @objcMembers is the same as putting
@objc on every property. As of Swift 4, classes that subclass NSObject do not have
their properties automatically exposed to the Objective-C runtime.

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Since NSObject uses the Objective-C runtime to perform KVO, you must add this for
KVO to work.

2. dynamic means that the dynamic dispatch system of Objective-C is used to call the
getter and setter of the property. This means that never, ever, will static or virtual
dispatch be used, even from Swift. This is required for KVO to work, because KVO
swizzles the setter of the property to insert its required magic.

3. A simple initializer that sets the value of name.

Next, add the following code to the end of the playground:

// 1
print("-- KVO Example -- ")

// 2
let kvoUser = KVOUser(name: "Ray")

// 3
var kvoObserver: NSKeyValueObservation? =
kvoUser.observe(\.name, options: [.initial, .new]) {
(user, change) in

print("User's name is \(user.name)")

}

Here’s what you did:

1. You first print "-- KVO Example --" to the console. This simply makes the printout
easier to read.

2. You create a new variable for kvoUser. Later on, you’ll have another variable called
user, so this avoids a naming conflict.

3. You declare an instance of NSKeyValueObservation? called kvoObserver. This is the

observer object. You get this by calling kvoUser.observe. This is where the KVO
magic happens!

This method actually returns a non-optional type, NSKeyValueObservation. However,

you explicitly declare this to be optional to allow you to set this variable to nil later.

The first method parameter is a key path. You specify this using the shorthand \.name,
which, depending on the context, Swift will expand to the fully-qualified key path of
\KVOUser.name to uniquely identify name on KVOUser.

options is a combination of NSKeyValueObservingOptions. Here, you specify you want

to receive the initial and new values.

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The last parameter is a closure that provides the user and change objects. The user is
after all changes have been made. The change may include an oldValue if a .new event
triggers this closure. Here, you print the user’s current name.

You should see the following printed to the console:

-- KVO Example --
User's name is Ray

The closure was called at the time that you set up the observer because you
specified .initial for options, which means “send an observation with the initial
value”.

Next, add the following code to trigger a .new KVO event:

kvoUser.name = "Rockin' Ray"

You should now see the following printed below User's name is Ray:

User's name is Rockin' Ray

Finally, add the following code to the end of the playground:

kvoObserver = nil
kvoUser.name = "Ray has left the building"

Remember how you explicitly made kvoObserver an optional type? Here, you set it to
nil. If you check the console, you’ll see the name after setting the kvoObserver to nil
isn’t printed out!

A fantastic feature of using KVO in Swift is that you don’t have to explicitly remove KVO
observers or closures. Instead, observers are weakly referenced, and their related
closures are automatically removed whenever an observer becomes nil. In past versions
of Swift and Objective-C, you had to explicitly call removeObserver(_:forKeyPath:), or
else your app would crash whenever you tried to access a deallocated observer.

It’s great that KVO takes care of automatically removing observers, but this doesn’t
really make up for KVO’s biggest downside: You’re required to subclass NSObject and
use the Objective-C runtime.

If you’re not okay with this, you can create your own Observable wrapper to get around
these limitations.

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Open Observer page ▸ Sources ▸ Observable.swift in the File hierarchy, and add the
following code to it:

// 1
public class Observable<Type> {

// MARK: - Callback
// 2
fileprivate class Callback {
fileprivate weak var observer: AnyObject?
fileprivate let options: [ObservableOptions]
fileprivate let closure: (Type, ObservableOptions) -> Void

fileprivate init(
observer: AnyObject,
options: [ObservableOptions],
closure: @escaping (Type, ObservableOptions) -> Void) {
self.observer = observer
self.options = options
self.closure = closure
}
}
}

// MARK: - ObservableOptions
// 3
public struct ObservableOptions: OptionSet {

public static let initial =

ObservableOptions(rawValue: 1 << 0)
public static let old = ObservableOptions(rawValue: 1 << 1)
public static let new = ObservableOptions(rawValue: 1 << 2)

public var rawValue: Int

public init(rawValue: Int) {

self.rawValue = rawValue
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first declare a new generic class called Observable<Type>.

2. You declare an embedded, fileprivate class called Callback. You’ll use this to
associate the observer, options and closure. Note that observer is a weak property,
so it’s required to be a class. Therefore, you denote it as AnyObject. You’ll eventually
see how to use this to automatically remove observers that become nil.

3. You then declare ObservableOptions as an OptionSet, which is very similar to

NSKeyValueObservingOptions from KVO. Since Swift currently doesn’t allow you to
embed OptionSets within generic classes, you declare this after Observable<Type>’s
ending class braces.

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Next, add the following code to the end of your Observable<Type> class definition
before you close the curly brace:

// MARK: - Properties
public var value: Type

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(_ value: Type) {
self.value = value
}

Here, you declare a new property called value of generic Type and create an initializer
for it.

Next, add the following code to the end of your Observable<Type> class just below the
public initializer you just added:

// MARK: - Managing Observers

// 1
private var callbacks: [Callback] = []

// 2
public func addObserver(
_ observer: AnyObject,
removeIfExists: Bool = true,
options: [ObservableOptions] = [.new],
closure: @escaping (Type, ObservableOptions) -> Void) {

// 3
if removeIfExists {
removeObserver(observer)
}

// 4
let callback = Callback(observer: observer,
options: options,
closure: closure)
callbacks.append(callback)

// 5
if options.contains(.initial) {
closure(value, .initial)
}
}

// 6
public func removeObserver(_ observer: AnyObject) {
// 7
callbacks = callbacks.filter { $0.observer !== observer }
}

Here’s what you’re doing above:

1. You declare callbacks to hold onto the registered Callback instances.

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2. You’ll use addObserver(_:removeIfExists:options:closure:) to register an

observer for the given options and closure.

3. If removeIfExists is true, you first remove existing callbacks for the observer.
Most of the time, this is exactly what you’ll want to do. You specify a default value
as true for removeIfExists on the method signature.

4. Here, you create a new callback and append this to the observers.

5. If options includes initial, you immediately call the callback closure.

6. You’ll use removeObserver(_:) to unregister an observer and remove all related

closures.

7. You set observers by filtering out existing objects that don’t match the passed-in
observer to be removed.

Whenever the value changes, you need to call appropriate closures on the registered
callbacks.

Replace public var value: Type with the following:

public var value: Type {

// 1
didSet {
// 2
removeNilObserverCallbacks()
// 3
notifyCallbacks(value: oldValue, option: .old)
notifyCallbacks(value: value, option: .new)
}
}

private func removeNilObserverCallbacks() {

callbacks = callbacks.filter { $0.observer != nil }
}

private func notifyCallbacks(value: Type,

option: ObservableOptions) {
let callbacksToNotify = callbacks.filter {
$0.options.contains(option)
}
callbacksToNotify.forEach { $0.closure(value, option) }
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first add a didSet property observer, which is called whenever value has been
changed.

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2. Within removeNilObserverCallbacks, you remove any Callbacks that have an

observer set to nil. This prevents calling a closure related to an observer that’s
already been released from memory.

3. You then call notifyCallbacks(value:option:) passing the oldValue and .old and
then passing value and .new. notifyCallbacks(value:option:) filters callbacks
matching the given option and calls closures on each.

Fantastic! You’ve created your very own Observable wrapper, which doesn’t depend on
any Apple frameworks or the Objective-C runtime!

It’s time to test your wrapper. Open the Observer page from the File hierarchy, and
enter the following at the bottom of the file:

// MARK: - Observable Example

public class User {
public let name: Observable<String>
public init(name: String) {
self.name = Observable(name)
}
}

public class Observer { }

User is the subject. In particular, note that it has a name of type Observable<String>.
You’ll be able to register for changes to this property.

Observer is the, uh, observer. You could have used an instance of NSObject, or any other
class, as the observer, but this demonstrates how you can create your own arbitrary
class without having to rely on Foundation or any other library.

Add the following code to the end of your playground:

// 1
print("")
print("-- Observable Example--")

// 2
let user = User(name: "Madeline")

// 3
var observer: Observer? = Observer()
user.name.addObserver(observer!,
options: [.initial, .new]) {
name, change in
print("User's name is \(name)")
}

Here’s what this does:

1. Make the console look pretty.

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2. You then declare a new user, which you’ll be observing.

3. Next, you create a new observer, which you then register to observe initial and
new values for user.name.

This should look very familiar to the way you registered for KVO notifications before.
However, you’re not required to provide a key path, since you’re registering on the
property itself.

You should see the following printed to the console:

-- Observable Example--
User's name is Madeline

Next, add the following to the end of your playground:

user.name.value = "Amelia"

Since name is an instance of Observable<String>, you must set user.name.value to

change the value, rather than just setting the name property directly.

You should then see the following printed to the console:

User's name is Amelia

Finally, add the following code to the end of the playground:

observer = nil
user.name.value = "Amelia is outta here!"

Here, you explicitly set observer to nil. This will cause its related Callback on
Observable to be removed automatically, so you won’t get any more notifications.

To verify this, you change name one final time. This time, you should not see anything
printed in the console.

Note: Wondering who Madeline and Amelia are? They’re my two ’lil monsters...
err, I mean, kids. They constantly distracted me while writing this, so it was
inevitable that they ended up in this example!

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What should you be careful about?

For simple models or properties that never change, the observer pattern may be
overkill; it can lead to unnecessary work.

Before you implement the observer pattern, define what you expect to change and
under which conditions. If you can’t identify a reason for an object or property to
change, you’re likely better off not implementing KVO/Observable immediately for it.

A unique identifier, for example, isn’t useful as an observable property since by

definition it should never change.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Rabble Wabble app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open starter ▸
RabbleWabble ▸ RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode.

You’ll use the observer pattern to display the user’s latest score on the “Select Question
Group” screen. You’ll use your Observable implementation from the Playground
Example, instead of KVO.

If you skipped the Playground Example, open Finder, navigate to where you
downloaded the resources for this chapter, and open
final\FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace. Otherwise, feel free to use your
own file from the playground.

Open Observer ▸ Sources ▸ Observable.swift in the File hierarchy; resize and

position the FundamentalDesignPatterns.xcworkspace window above
RabbleWabble.xcodeproj.

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Now, drag and drop Observable.swift from the playground workspace into the Models
group within RabbleWabble.xcodeproj.

When prompted, make sure Copy items if needed is checked and select Finish to
continue.

Next, open QuestionGroup.swift from the File hierarchy. This already has a Score,
but it’s not currently possible to observe changes on it. Add the following to the end of
the Score class (which is inside the QuestionGroup class) before the closing curly brace:

public lazy var runningPercentage =

Observable(calculateRunningPercentage())

private func calculateRunningPercentage() -> Double {

let totalCount = correctCount + incorrectCount
guard totalCount > 0 else {
return 0
}

return Double(correctCount) / Double(totalCount)

}

The runningPercentage property allows the user’s latest “running percentage score” to
be observed, which here you define to be the “ratio of correct answers to total answers.”
This is useful, for example, if the user has the “Random” setting selected to spot check
their knowledge.

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Next, replace the var correctCount and var incorrectCount lines with the following:

public var correctCount: Int = 0 {

didSet {
updateRunningPercentage()
}
}
public var incorrectCount: Int = 0 {
didSet {
updateRunningPercentage()
}
}
private func updateRunningPercentage() {
runningPercentage.value = calculateRunningPercentage()
}

While you could change correctCount and incorrectCount to be Observables, you’re

not interested in observing these properties individually. Rather, you’re interested in
how they affect runningPercentage. So within didSet for each of these, you call
updateRunningPercentage(), which in turn sets the runningPercentage.value and
triggers observer notifications.

Before you can start registering observers for runningPercentage, you need to make a
few small changes. First, add the following method to the end of the Score class before
the closing curly brace:

public func reset() {

correctCount = 0
incorrectCount = 0
}

This method “resets” Score. You’ll use it whenever the user restarts a QuestionGroup.

Next, replace the var score line with the following, ignoring the resulting compiler
error:

public private(set) var score: Score

Here, you prevent all outside classes from setting score directly. This ensures any
runningPercentage observers aren’t accidentally wiped out, should score be set
directly.

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There’s currently one place that does set score directly. Open
BaseQuestionStrategy.swift and replace the following line:

self.questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup.score =
QuestionGroup.Score()

...with the following:

self.questionGroupCaretaker.selectedQuestionGroup.score.reset()

Build and run to ensure you don’t have any compiler errors. Nothing appears to have
changed so far, but you’re now ready to register your observers!

Open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and add the following code to

tableView(_:cellForRowAt:), just before the return statement:

// 1
questionGroup.score.runningPercentage.addObserver(
cell, options: [.initial, .new]) {
// 2
[weak cell] (percentage, _) in
// 3
DispatchQueue.main.async {
// 4
cell?.percentageLabel.text = String(format: "%.0f %%",
round(100 * percentage))
}
}

Here’s what you did above:

1. You register cell as an observer of runningPercentage, passing initial and new

into options to be notified of the current value, as well as any time the value
changes.

2. To ensure you don’t create a retain cycle, you specify [weak cell]. Otherwise, you
would capture cell strongly within the closure, which could lead to a memory leak.

3. You dispatch to the main thread, which is always a good idea when you’re modifying
view properties. Currently, the app doesn’t do anything off the main thread, but
there’s no guarantee this won’t change in the future. Defensive coding always pays
off!

4. Finally, you set cell.percentageLabel.text by formatting the percentage as a

String.

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Build and run; pick any question group cell you’d like, and tap the “Correct” and
“Incorrect” buttons a few times. When you press the “Menu” button, the score will now
be visible. Even better, if you quit the app and restart it, the scores will be persisted
thanks to your implementation of the memento pattern from the previous chapter.

Key points
You learned about the observer pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The observer pattern lets one object observe changes on another object. It involves
two types: the subject and observer.

• The subject is the object that’s being observed, and the observer is doing the
observing.

• One way to implement the observer pattern is using KVO. However, this requires you
to subclass NSObject, which isn't always desirable.

• Another way to implement the observer pattern is using an Observable wrapper

class. This isn’t provided by Swift, so you must write your own. However, it doesn’t
require you to depend on NSObject, Foundation or any other frameworks.

RabbleWabble is becoming ever more feature-rich. However, there’s one feature that
would be really great: the ability for users to create their own QuestionGroups. You’ll
use another pattern to do this: the builder design pattern.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the builder pattern and complete the
RabbleWabble app.

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9 Chapter 9: Builder Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The builder pattern allows you to create complex objects by providing inputs step-by-
step, instead of requiring all inputs upfront via an initializer. This pattern involves
three main types:

1. The director accepts inputs and coordinates with the builder. This is usually a view
controller or a helper class that’s used by a view controller.

2. The product is the complex object to be created. This can be either a struct or a
class, depending on desired reference semantics. It’s usually a model, but it can be
any type depending on your use case.

3. The builder accepts step-by-step inputs and handles the creation of the product.
This is often a class, so it can be reused by reference.

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When should you use it?

Use the builder pattern when you want to create a complex object using a series of
steps.

This pattern works especially well when a product requires multiple inputs. The builder
abstracts how these inputs are used to create the product, and it accepts them in
whatever order the director wants to provide them.

For example, you can use this pattern to implement a “hamburger builder.” The product
could be a hamburger model, which has inputs such as meat selection, toppings and
sauces. The director could be an employee object, which knows how to build
hamburgers, or it could be a view controller that accepts inputs from the user.

The “hamburger builder” can thereby accept meat selection, toppings and sauces in any
order and create a hamburger upon request.

Playground example
Open FundamentalDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, and then open the
Overview page.

You’ll see Builder is listed under Creational Patterns. This is because this pattern is
all about creating complex products. Click on the Builder link to open that page.

You’ll implement the “hamburger builder” example from above. You first need to define
the product. Enter the following right after Code Example:

// MARK: - Product
// 1
public struct Hamburger {
public let meat: Meat
public let sauce: Sauces
public let toppings: Toppings
}

extension Hamburger: CustomStringConvertible {

public var description: String {
return meat.rawValue + " burger"
}
}

// 2
public enum Meat: String {
case beef

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case chicken
case kitten
case tofu
}

// 3
public struct Sauces: OptionSet {
public static let mayonnaise = Sauces(rawValue: 1 << 0)
public static let mustard = Sauces(rawValue: 1 << 1)
public static let ketchup = Sauces(rawValue: 1 << 2)
public static let secret = Sauces(rawValue: 1 << 3)

public let rawValue: Int

public init(rawValue: Int) {
self.rawValue = rawValue
}
}

// 4
public struct Toppings: OptionSet {
public static let cheese = Toppings(rawValue: 1 << 0)
public static let lettuce = Toppings(rawValue: 1 << 1)
public static let pickles = Toppings(rawValue: 1 << 2)
public static let tomatoes = Toppings(rawValue: 1 << 3)

public let rawValue: Int

public init(rawValue: Int) {
self.rawValue = rawValue
}
}

Taking each commented section in turn:

1. You first define Hamburger, which has properties for meat, sauce and toppings. Once
a hamburger is made, you aren’t allowed to change its components, which you
codify via let properties. You also make Hamburger conform to
CustomStringConvertible, so you can print it later.

2. You declare Meat as an enum. Each hamburger must have exactly one meat selection:
sorry, no beef-chicken-tofu burgers allowed. You also specify an exotic meat,
kitten. Who doesn’t like nom nom kitten burgers?

3. You define Sauces as an OptionSet. This will allow you to combine multiple sauces
together. My personal favorite is ketchup-mayonnaise-secret sauce.

4. You likewise define Toppings as an OptionSet. You’re gonna need more than pickles
for a good burger!

Add the following code next to define the builder:

// MARK: - Builder
public class HamburgerBuilder {

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// 1
public private(set) var meat: Meat = .beef
public private(set) var sauces: Sauces = []
public private(set) var toppings: Toppings = []

// 2
public func addSauces(_ sauce: Sauces) {
sauces.insert(sauce)
}

public func removeSauces(_ sauce: Sauces) {

sauces.remove(sauce)
}

public func addToppings(_ topping: Toppings) {

toppings.insert(topping)
}

public func removeToppings(_ topping: Toppings) {

toppings.remove(topping)
}

public func setMeat(_ meat: Meat) {

self.meat = meat
}

// 3
public func build() -> Hamburger {
return Hamburger(meat: meat,
sauce: sauces,
toppings: toppings)
}
}

There are a few important subtleties here:

1. You declare properties for meat, sauces and toppings, which exactly match the
inputs for Hamburger. Unlike a Hamburger, you declare these using var to be able to
change them. You also specify private(set) for each to ensure only
HamburgerBuilder can set them directly.

2. Since you declared each property using private(set), you need to provide public
methods to change them. You do so via addSauces(_:), removeSauces(_:),
addToppings(_:), removeToppings(_:) and setMeat(_:).

3. Lastly, you define build() to create the Hamburger from the selections.

private(set) forces consumers to use the public setter methods. This allows the
builder to perform validation before setting the properties.

For example, you’ll ensure a meat is available prior to setting it.

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Add the following property right after the others:

private var soldOutMeats: [Meat] = [.kitten]

If a meat is sold out, you’ll throw an error whenever setMeat(_:) is called. You’ll need
to declare a custom error type for this. Add the following code right after the opening
curly brace for HamburgerBuilder:

public enum Error: Swift.Error {

case soldOut
}

Then, replace setMeat(_:) with the following:

public func setMeat(_ meat: Meat) throws {

guard isAvailable(meat) else { throw Error.soldOut }
self.meat = meat
}

public func isAvailable(_ meat: Meat) -> Bool {

return !soldOutMeats.contains(meat)
}

If you now attempt to set kitten for the meat, you will receive an error that it’s soldOut.
It’s really popular, after all!

Next, you need to declare the director. Add the following at the end of the playground:

// MARK: - Director
public class Employee {

public func createCombo1() throws -> Hamburger {

let builder = HamburgerBuilder()
try builder.setMeat(.beef)
builder.addSauces(.secret)
builder.addToppings([.lettuce, .tomatoes, .pickles])
return builder.build()
}

public func createKittenSpecial() throws -> Hamburger {

let builder = HamburgerBuilder()

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try builder.setMeat(.kitten)
builder.addSauces(.mustard)
builder.addToppings([.lettuce, .tomatoes])
return builder.build()
}
}

An Employee knows how to create two burgers: createCombo1 and createKittenSpecial.

It’s best to keep it simple, right? You’re finally ready to see this code in action! Add the
following:

// MARK: - Example
let burgerFlipper = Employee()

if let combo1 = try? burgerFlipper.createCombo1() {

print("Nom nom " + combo1.description)
}

Here, you create an instance of Employee called burgerFlipper and request combo1 be
created. You should see this printed to the console:

Nom nom beef burger

Add the following code next:

if let kittenBurger = try?

burgerFlipper.createKittenSpecial() {
print("Nom nom nom " + kittenBurger.description)

} else {
print("Sorry, no kitten burgers here... :[")
}

Here, you request a kitten-special burger. Since kitten is sold out, you’ll see this
printed to the console:

Sorry, no kitten burgers here... :[

Aww man, you’re going to have to go somewhere else to satisfy your kitten burger
cravings!

What should you be careful about?

The builder pattern works best for creating complex products that require multiple
inputs using a series of steps. If your product doesn’t have several inputs or can’t be
created step by step, the builder pattern may be more trouble than it’s worth.

Instead, consider providing convenience initializers to create the product.

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Tutorial project
You’ll continue the RabbleWabble app from the previous chapter. Specifically, you’ll add
the capability to create a new QuestionGroup using the builder pattern.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\RabbleWabble\RabbleWabble.xcodeproj in Xcode. You should then skip to
Implementing the builder pattern, as the starter project already has all the files you
need within it.

If you instead choose to continue building your project from the last chapter, you’ll
need to add a few files. The contents of these files aren’t significant to understand the
builder pattern. Rather, they provide a simple starting point, so you won’t need to do
tedious view setup.

Open Finder and navigate to where you have the projects downloaded for this chapter.
Alongside the Starter and Final directories, you’ll see a Resources directory that
contains Controllers and Views subdirectories.

Position the Finder window above Xcode and drag and drop
Controllers\CreateQuestionGroupViewController.swift into the app’s Controllers
group like this:

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When prompted, check the option for Copy items if needed and press Finish to add
the file.

Likewise, drag and drop all of the files from resources\Views into the app’s Views.
Then, right-click on Views and select Sort by Name. Afterwards, your File hierarchy
should look like this:

CreateQuestionGroupViewController provides the capability to create a new

QuestionGroup. However, it’s not currently possible to get to this within the app.

To fix this, open Main.storyboard and pan to the Select Question Group scene. Then,
press the Object library button and enter bar button into the search field. Then, drag
and drop a new bar button item as the right bar button for the Select Question
Group scene.

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Select the newly added bar button item, go to the Attributes Inspector and set
System Item as Add.

Next, press the Object library button, enter storyboard into the search field, and drag
and drop a new storyboard reference above the Question View Controller scene.

Select this storyboard reference, go to Attributes Inspector and set Storyboard as

NewQuestionGroup.

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Finally, Control-drag from the + bar button to the NewQuestionGroup storyboard

reference. In the new window that appears, select Present Modally. This creates a
segue to the NewQuestionGroup storyboard’s initial view controller.

Open NewQuestionGroup.storyboard, and you’ll see its initial view controller is set to
a UINavigationController, which has CreateQuestionGroupViewController set as its
root view controller.

Build and run and press + to see it in action!

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If you press Cancel, however, nothing happens! What’s up with that?

CreateQuestionGroupViewController calls a delegate method whenever its cancel

button is pressed. However, you haven’t hooked up the delegate yet.

To fix this, open SelectQuestionGroupViewController.swift and add the following

extension at the end of the file:

// MARK: - CreateQuestionGroupViewControllerDelegate
extension SelectQuestionGroupViewController:
CreateQuestionGroupViewControllerDelegate {

public func createQuestionGroupViewControllerDidCancel(

_ viewController: CreateQuestionGroupViewController) {
dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

public func createQuestionGroupViewController(

_ viewController: CreateQuestionGroupViewController,
created questionGroup: QuestionGroup) {

questionGroupCaretaker.questionGroups.append(questionGroup)
try? questionGroupCaretaker.save()

dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)

tableView.reloadData()
}
}

This makes SelectQuestionGroupViewController conform to

CreateQuestionGroupViewControllerDelegate.

This protocol requires two methods:

createQuestionGroupViewControllerDidCancel(_:) is called whenever the cancel
button is pressed, and createQuestionGroupViewController(_:created:) is called
whenever a new QuestionGroup is created.

To handle cancellation, you simply dismiss the view controller. To handle creation, you
append the new QuestionGroup to the questionGroupCaretaker.questionGroups,
request it to save(), dismiss the view controller and refresh the table view.

You also need to actually set the delegate property when the segue to
CreateQuestionGroupViewController is triggered. Replace prepare(for
segue:sender:) with the following:

public override func prepare(

for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
// 1
if let viewController =
segue.destination as? QuestionViewController {
viewController.questionStrategy =

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appSettings.questionStrategy(for: questionGroupCaretaker)
viewController.delegate = self

// 2
} else if let navController =
segue.destination as? UINavigationController,
let viewController =
navController.topViewController as?
CreateQuestionGroupViewController {
viewController.delegate = self
}

// 3
// Whatevs... skip anything else
}

Here’s what this does:

1. There’s another segue that is possible, which shows the QuestionViewController.

Previously, this was the only code within this method. You check if this is the case,
and if so, set the properties on QuestionViewController correctly.

2. You then check if the segue is transitioning to a

CreateQuestionGroupViewController within a UINavigationController. If so, you
set the delegate on the new CreateQuestionGroupViewController instance.

3. If neither if statement matches, you simply ignore the segue.

Build and run, tap + and then tap Cancel. The view controller will now be dismissed
correctly.

If you press Save, though, nothing happens! This is because you haven’t added code to
actually create a QuestionGroup yet. You need to use the builder pattern to do this.

Implementing the builder pattern

CreateQuestionGroupViewController is a new file added in this chapter. It uses a table
view to accept inputs for creating a QuestionGroup. It displays
CreateQuestionGroupTitleCell and CreateQuestionCell to collect input from the user.

Thereby, CreateQuestionGroupViewController is the director, and QuestionGroup is the

product. Your job will be to first create a builder and then modify
CreateQuestionGroupViewController to use it.

To start, right-click on the yellow RabbleWabble group and select New Group. Enter
Builders for its name and move it below the AppDelegate group. This makes it clear to
other developers that you’re using the builder pattern.

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Right-click on your newly-added Builders group, select New File. Then choose iOS ▸
Swift File and click Next. Then enter QuestionGroupBuilder.swift for its name and
press Create to add the new file.

QuestionGroupBuilder will be responsible for creating new QuestionGroups. However,

QuestionGroup also contains complex child objects, Question.

What can you use to create these complex child object? Another builder, of course!
You’ll create this builder first. Replace the contents of QuestionGroupBuilder.swift
with the following:

public class QuestionBuilder {

public var answer = ""
public var hint = ""
public var prompt = ""

public func build() throws -> Question {

guard answer.count > 0 else { throw Error.missingAnswer }
guard prompt.count > 0 else { throw Error.missingPrompt }
return Question(answer: answer, hint: hint, prompt: prompt)
}

public enum Error: String, Swift.Error {

case missingAnswer
case missingPrompt
}
}

QuestionBuilder has properties for all of the inputs needed to create a Question:
answer, hint and prompt. Initially, each of these is set to an empty string. Whenever you
call build(), it validates that answer and prompt have been set. If either aren’t set, it
throws a custom error; hint is optional within the app, so it’s okay if its empty.
Otherwise, it returns a new Question.

You can now create QuestionGroupBuilder, which will use QuestionBuilder internally.
Add the following code right before QuestionBuilder:

public class QuestionGroupBuilder {

// 1
public var questions = [QuestionBuilder()]
public var title = ""

// 2
public func addNewQuestion() {
let question = QuestionBuilder()
questions.append(question)
}

public func removeQuestion(at index: Int) {

questions.remove(at: index)

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// 3
public func build() throws -> QuestionGroup {
guard self.title.count > 0 else { throw Error.missingTitle }
guard self.questions.count > 0 else { throw Error.missingQuestions }
let questions = try self.questions.map { try $0.build() }
return QuestionGroup(questions: questions, title: title)
}

public enum Error: String, Swift.Error {

case missingTitle
case missingQuestions
}
}

Here’s what’s going on:

1. You first declare properties matching the required inputs to create a QuestionGroup.
You create an array of QuestionBuilders, which will build the individual question
objects. You initially create a single QuestionBuilder so that there is one to start
with. A question group must have at least one question after all!

2. As its name implies, you’ll use addNewQuestion() to create and append a new
QuestionBuilder onto questions. Similarly, removeQuestion(at:) will remove a
QuestionBuilder by index from questions.

3. Whenever you call build(), the QuestionBuilder validates that title has been set
and there’s at least one QuestionBuilder within questions. If not, it throws an error.
If both conditions pass, it attempts to create Questions by calling build() on each
QuestionBuilder. This too can fail and result in an error thrown by an invalid
Question. If everything goes well, it returns a new QuestionGroup.

You’re now ready to use QuestionBuilder! Open

CreateQuestionGroupViewController.swift, and you’ll see there are several // TODO
comments. Each of these requires you to use QuestionBuilder to complete them.

First, add this property right after delegate:

public let questionGroupBuilder = QuestionGroupBuilder()

Since you set all of the properties of QuestionGroupBuilder to default values, you don’t
have to pass anything to create a QuestionGroupBuilder. Nice and easy!

Next, replace the return statement within tableView(_:numberOfRowsInSection:) with

this:

return questionGroupBuilder.questions.count + 2

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CreateQuestionGroupViewController displays three types of table view cells: one for

the title of the QuestionGroup, one for each QuestionBuilder and one to add
additional QuestionBuilder objects. Hence, this results in
questionGroupBuilder.questions.count + 2 for the total number of cells.

Within tableView(_:cellForRowAt:), replace this line:

} else if row == 1 {

with this instead:

} else if row >= 1 &&

row <= questionGroupBuilder.questions.count {

The previous code assumed there was only one QuestionBuilder cell. Here, you update
this to take into account that there could be several.

Replace the // TODO: within titleCell(from:for:) with the following:

cell.titleTextField.text = questionGroupBuilder.title

Here, you simply display the text from questionGroupBuilder.title.

Next, add the following after questionCell(from:for:):

private func questionBuilder(for indexPath: IndexPath) -> QuestionBuilder

{
return questionGroupBuilder.questions[indexPath.row - 1]
}

This is a helper method to get the QuestionBuilder for a given index path. You’ll need
this a few times hereafter, so it’s beneficial to define this in only one place.

Replace the // TODO: within questionCell(from:for:) with the following:

let questionBuilder = self.questionBuilder(for: indexPath)

cell.delegate = self
cell.answerTextField.text = questionBuilder.answer
cell.hintTextField.text = questionBuilder.hint
cell.indexLabel.text = "Question \(indexPath.row)"
cell.promptTextField.text = questionBuilder.prompt

This configures the given CreateQuestionCell using values from the QuestionBuilder
at the given indexPath.

Replace // TODO: - Add UITableViewDelegate methods with the following:

public override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt

indexPath: IndexPath) {
tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath, animated: true)

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guard isLastIndexPath(indexPath) else { return }

questionGroupBuilder.addNewQuestion()
tableView.insertRows(at: [indexPath], with: .top)
}

private func isLastIndexPath(_ indexPath: IndexPath) -> Bool {

return indexPath.row ==
tableView.numberOfRows(inSection: indexPath.section) - 1
}

Whenever a table view cell is tapped, tableView(_:didSelectRowAt:) checks if the

indexPath matches isLastIndexPath. If it does, then the user has clicked the “Add” cell
at the bottom of the table view. In this case, you request
questionGroupBuilder.addNewQuestion() and insert a new cell to show the new
QuestionBuilder.

Build and run. Then tap + to navigate to CreateQuestionGroupViewController to try out

the changes.

You can now add additional QuestionBuilder instances and cells to the table view.
Awesome!

If you input text for several questions and create many new cells thereafter, you’ll
notice that your text is gone after scrolling the table view. This is because you haven’t
actually persisted the text input into the cells onto each QuestionBuilder.

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Fortunately, CreateQuestionGroupViewController already conforms to

CreateQuestionCellDelegate, which is called by CreateQuestionCell whenever answer,
hint and prompt text changes. So you just need to complete these methods!

Add the following right after createQuestionCell(_:promptTextDidChange:):

private func questionBuilder(for cell: CreateQuestionCell) ->

QuestionBuilder {
let indexPath = tableView.indexPath(for: cell)!
return questionBuilder(for: indexPath)
}

You’ll use this helper to determine the QuestionBuilder for a given cell, which you do
so by finding the cell’s indexPath and then using the helper method you wrote earlier
for questionBuilder(for indexPath:).

Replace the // TODO: within createQuestionCell(_:answerTextDidChange:) with the

following:

questionBuilder(for: cell).answer = text

This sets the answer on the QuestionBuilder for the given cell.

Likewise, replace the // TODO: within createQuestionCell(_:hintTextDidChange:)

with this:

questionBuilder(for: cell).hint = text

Then, replace the the // TODO: within createQuestionCell(_:promptTextDidChange:)

with this:

questionBuilder(for: cell).prompt = text

These set the hint and prompt on the QuestionBuilder for the given cell.

While you’re at it, you also need to complete

createQuestionGroupTitleCell(_:titleTextDidChange:) to persist the title for the
QuestionGroup. Replace the // TODO inside that with the following:

questionGroupBuilder.title = text

Build and run, navigate to CreateQuestionGroupViewController and again enter several

texts’ worth of questions and try scrolling around. This time, everything should work as
expected!

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However, the Save button still doesn’t do anything. It’s time for you to fix this. Replace
savePressed(_:) with the following:

@IBAction func savePressed(_ sender: Any) {

do {
let questionGroup = try questionGroupBuilder.build()
delegate?.createQuestionGroupViewController(
self, created: questionGroup)

} catch {
displayMissingInputsAlert()
}
}

public func displayMissingInputsAlert() {

let alert = UIAlertController(
title: "Missing Inputs",
message: "Please provide all non-optional values",
preferredStyle: .alert)

let okAction = UIAlertAction(title: "Ok",

style: .default,
handler: nil)
alert.addAction(okAction)
present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

You attempt to create a new QuestionGroup by calling questionGroupBuilder.build().

If this succeeds, you notify the delegate. If it throws an error, you alert the user to input
all required fields. Build and run, navigate to CreateQuestionGroupViewController,
enter a title, and create a couple of questions. Tap Save, and you’ll then see your brand-
new QuestionGroup added to the Select Question Group listing!

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Key points
You learned the builder pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The builder pattern is great for creating complex objects in a step-by-step fashion. It
involves three objects: the director, product and builder.

• The director accepts inputs and coordinates with the builder; the product is the
complex object that’s created; and the builder takes step-by-step inputs and creates
the product.

Where to go from here?

RabbleWabble has really come a long way since you created it, but there’s still a lot of
functionality you can add.

• Editing and deleting QuestionGroups.

• Tracking and showing scores over time.

• Showing questions using a spaced repetition algorithm.

Each of these are possible using the existing patterns you learned in this “Fundamental
Design Patterns” section. Feel free to continue building out Rabble Wabble as much as
you like.

If you’ve worked through this entire first section, congratulations are in order: You’ve
learned many of the most commonly used iOS design patterns!

But your design patterns journey doesn’t stop here. Continue onto the next section to
learn about intermediate design patterns, including MVVM, Adapter, Factory and more!

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Patterns

This section covers design patterns that are also common, but are used less frequently
than the fundamental design patterns in Section II.

Many of these patterns work well together, but not all. You'll create two projects in this
section as you explore these intermediate patterns.

Chapter 10: Model-View-ViewModel Pattern

Chapter 11: Factory Pattern
Chapter 12: Adapter Pattern
Chapter 13: Iterator Pattern
Chapter 14: Prototype Pattern
Chapter 15: State Pattern
Chapter 16: Multicast Delegate Pattern
Chapter 17: Facade Pattern

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10 Chapter 10: Model-View-
ViewModel Pattern
By Jay Strawn

Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) is a structural design pattern that separates objects

into three distinct groups:

• Models hold app data. They’re usually structs or simple classes.

• Views display visual elements and controls on the screen. They’re typically
subclasses of UIView.

• View models transform model information into values that can be displayed on a
view. They’re usually classes, so they can be passed around as references.

Does this pattern sound familiar? Yep, it’s very similar to Model-View-Controller
(MVC). Note that the class diagram at the top of this page includes a view controller;
view controllers do exist in MVVM, but their role is minimized.

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to implement view models and organize your projects
to include them. You’ll start with a simple example on what a view model does, then
you’ll take a MVC project and refactor it into MVVM.

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When should you use it?

Use this pattern when you need to transform models into another representation for a
view. For example, you can use a view model to transform a Date into a date-formatted
String, a Decimal into a currency-formatted String, or many other useful
transformations.

This pattern compliments MVC especially well. Without view models, you’d likely put
model-to-view transformation code in your view controller. However, view controllers
are already doing quite a bit: handling viewDidLoad and other view lifecycle events,
handling view callbacks via IBActions and several other tasks as well.

This leads to what developers jokingly refer to as “MVC: Massive View Controller".

How can you avoid overstuffing your view controllers? It’s easy — use other patterns
besides MVC! MVVM is a great way to slim down massive view controllers that require
several model-to-view transformations.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then
open the MVVM page.

For the example, you’ll make a “Pet View” as part of an app that adopts pets. Add the
following after Code Example:

import PlaygroundSupport
import UIKit

// MARK: - Model
public class Pet {
public enum Rarity {
case common
case uncommon
case rare

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case veryRare
}

public let name: String

public let birthday: Date
public let rarity: Rarity
public let image: UIImage

public init(name: String,

birthday: Date,
rarity: Rarity,
image: UIImage) {
self.name = name
self.birthday = birthday
self.rarity = rarity
self.image = image
}
}

Here, you define a model named Pet. Every pet has a name, birthday, rarity and image.
You need to show these properties on a view, but birthday and rarity aren’t directly
displayable. They’ll need to be transformed by a view model first.

Next, add the following code to the end of your playground:

// MARK: - ViewModel
public class PetViewModel {

// 1
private let pet: Pet
private let calendar: Calendar

public init(pet: Pet) {

self.pet = pet
self.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .gregorian)
}

// 2
public var name: String {
return pet.name
}

public var image: UIImage {

return pet.image
}

// 3
public var ageText: String {
let today = calendar.startOfDay(for: Date())
let birthday = calendar.startOfDay(for: pet.birthday)
let components = calendar.dateComponents([.year],
from: birthday,
to: today)
let age = components.year!
return "\(age) years old"
}

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// 4
public var adoptionFeeText: String {
switch pet.rarity {
case .common:
return "$50.00"
case .uncommon:
return "$75.00"
case .rare:
return "$150.00"
case .veryRare:
return "$500.00"
}
}
}

Here’s what you did above:

1. First, you created two private properties called pet and calendar, setting both
within init(pet:).

2. Next, you declared two computed properties for name and image, where you return
the pet’s name and image respectively. This is the simplest transformation you can
perform: returning a value without modification. If you wanted to change the
design to add a prefix to every pet’s name, you could easily do so by modifying name
here.

3. Next, you declared ageText as another computed property, where you used calendar
to calculate the difference in years between the start of today and the pet’s birthday
and return this as a String followed by "years old". You’ll be able to display this
value directly on a view without having to perform any other string formatting.

4. Finally, you created adoptionFeeText as a final computed property, where you

determine the pet’s adoption cost based on its rarity. Again, you return this as a
String so you can display it directly.

Now you need a UIView to display the pet’s information. Add the following code to the
end of the playground:

// MARK: - View
public class PetView: UIView {
public let imageView: UIImageView
public let nameLabel: UILabel
public let ageLabel: UILabel
public let adoptionFeeLabel: UILabel

public override init(frame: CGRect) {

var childFrame = CGRect(x: 0,

y: 16,

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width: frame.width,
height: frame.height / 2)
imageView = UIImageView(frame: childFrame)
imageView.contentMode = .scaleAspectFit

childFrame.origin.y += childFrame.height + 16
childFrame.size.height = 30
nameLabel = UILabel(frame: childFrame)
nameLabel.textAlignment = .center

childFrame.origin.y += childFrame.height
ageLabel = UILabel(frame: childFrame)
ageLabel.textAlignment = .center

childFrame.origin.y += childFrame.height
adoptionFeeLabel = UILabel(frame: childFrame)
adoptionFeeLabel.textAlignment = .center

super.init(frame: frame)

backgroundColor = .white
addSubview(imageView)
addSubview(nameLabel)
addSubview(ageLabel)
addSubview(adoptionFeeLabel)
}

@available(*, unavailable)
public required init?(coder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init?(coder:) is not supported")
}
}

Here, you create a PetView with four subviews: an imageView to display the pet’s image
and three other labels to display the pet’s name, age and adoption fee. You create and
position each view within init(frame:). Lastly, you throw a fatalError within init?
(coder:) to indicate it’s not supported.

You’re ready to put these classes into action! Add the following code to the end of the
playground:

// MARK: - Example
// 1
let birthday = Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: (-2 * 86400 * 366))
let image = UIImage(named: "stuart")!
let stuart = Pet(name: "Stuart",
birthday: birthday,
rarity: .veryRare,
image: image)

// 2
let viewModel = PetViewModel(pet: stuart)

// 3
let frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 300, height: 420)

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let view = PetView(frame: frame)

// 4
view.nameLabel.text = viewModel.name
view.imageView.image = viewModel.image
view.ageLabel.text = viewModel.ageText
view.adoptionFeeLabel.text = viewModel.adoptionFeeText

// 5
PlaygroundPage.current.liveView = view

Here’s what you did:

1. First, you created a new Pet named stuart.

2. Next, you created a viewModel using stuart.

3. Next, you created a view by passing a common frame size on iOS.

4. Next, you configured the subviews of view using viewModel.

5. Finally, you set view to the PlaygroundPage.current.liveView, which tells the

playground to render it within the standard Assistant editor.

To see this in action, select View ▸ Assistant Editor ▸ Show Assistant Editor to check
out the rendered view.

What type of pet is Stuart exactly? He’s a cookie monster, of course! They’re very rare.

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There’s one final improvement you can make to this example. Add the following
extension right after the class closing curly brace for PetViewModel:

extension PetViewModel {
public func configure(_ view: PetView) {
view.nameLabel.text = name
view.imageView.image = image
view.ageLabel.text = ageText
view.adoptionFeeLabel.text = adoptionFeeText
}
}

You’ll use this method to configure the view using the view model instead of doing this
inline.

Find the following code you entered previously:

// 4
view.nameLabel.text = viewModel.name
view.imageView.image = viewModel.image
view.ageLabel.text = viewModel.ageText
view.adoptionFeeLabel.text = viewModel.adoptionFeeText

...and replace that code with the following:

viewModel.configure(view)

This is a neat way to put all of the view configuration logic into the view model. You
may or may not want to do this in practice. If you’re only using the view model with one
view, then it can be useful to put the configure method into the view model. However, if
you’re using the view model with more than one view, then you might find that putting
all that logic in the view model clutters it. Having the configure code separately for each
view may be simpler in that case.

Your output should be the same as before.

Hey Stuart, are you going to share that cookie? No? Aww, come on...!

What should you be careful about?

MVVM works well if your app requires many model-to-view transformations. However,
not every object will neatly fit into the categories of model, view or view model. Instead,
you should use MVVM in combination with other design patterns.

Furthermore, MVVM may not be very useful when you first create your application.
MVC may be a better starting point. As your app’s requirements change, you’ll likely

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need to choose different design patterns based on your changing requirements. It’s
okay to introduce MVVM later in an app’s lifetime when you really need it.

Don’t be afraid of change — instead, plan ahead for it.

Tutorial project
Throughout this section, you’ll add functionality to an app called Coffee Quest.

In the Starter directory, open CoffeeQuest ▸ CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace (not

the .xcodeproj) in Xcode.

This app displays nearby coffee shops provided by Yelp. It uses CocoaPods to pull in
YelpAPI, a helper library for searching Yelp. If you haven’t used CocoaPods before, that’s
OK! Everything you need has been included for you in the starter project. The only
thing you need to remember is to open CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace, instead of the
CoffeeQuest.xcodeproj file.

Note: If you’d like to learn more about CocoaPods, read our tutorial about it here:
http://bit.ly/cocoapods-tutorial.

Before you can run the app, you’ll first need to register for a Yelp API key.

Navigate to this URL in your web browser:

• https://www.yelp.com/developers/v3/manage_app

Create an account if you don’t have one, or sign in. Next, enter the following in the
Create App form (or if you’ve created an app before, use your existing API Key):

• App Name: “Coffee Quest"

• App Website: (leave this blank)

• Industry: Select “Business”

• Company: (leave this blank)

• Contact Email: (your email address)

• Description: “Coffee search app"

• I have read and accepted the Yelp API Terms: check this

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Your form should look as follows:

Press Create New App to continue, and you should see a success message:

Copy your API key and return to CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace in Xcode.

Open CoffeeQuest\Resources\APIKeys.swift, and paste your API key where

indicated.

Build and run to see the app in action.

The simulator’s default location is set to San Francisco. Wow, there are a lot of coffee
shops in that city!

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Note: You can change the location of the simulator by clicking Debug ▸ Location
and then selecting a different option.

These map pins are kind of boring. Wouldn’t it be great if they showed which coffee
shops were actually good?

Open CoffeeQuest\Models\MapPin.swift. MapPin takes a coordinate, title, and

rating, then converts those into something a map view can display... does this sound
familiar? Yes, it’s actually a view model!

First, you need to give this class a better name. Right click on MapPin at the top of the
file and select Refactor ▸ Rename.

Click Rename and enter BusinessMapViewModel for the new name. This will rename
both the class name and file name in the File hierarchy.

Next, select the Models group in the File hierarchy and press Enter to edit its name.
Rename this to ViewModels.

Finally, click on the yellow CoffeeQuest group and select Sort by name. Ultimately,
your File hierarchy should look like this:

This makes it obvious to other developers you’re using the MVVM pattern. Clarity is
good!

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BusinessMapViewModel needs a few more properties in order to show exciting map

annotations, instead of the plain-vanilla pins provided by MapKit.

Still inside BusinessMapViewModel.swift, replace import Foundation with the

following:

import UIKit

You import UIKit here since you’re going to add components which require UIKit.

Next, add the following properties after the existing ones; ignore the resulting compiler
errors for now:

public let image: UIImage

public let ratingDescription: String

You’ll use image instead of the default pin image, and you’ll display ratingDescription
as a subtitle whenever the user taps the annotation.

Next, replace init(coordinate:name:rating:) with the following:

public init(coordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D,

name: String,
rating: Double,
image: UIImage) {
self.coordinate = coordinate
self.name = name
self.rating = rating
self.image = image
self.ratingDescription = "\(rating) stars"
}

You accept image via this initializer and set ratingDescription from the rating.

Next, add the following computed property to the end of the MKAnnotation extension:

public var subtitle: String? {

return ratingDescription
}

This tells the map to use ratingDescription as the subtitle shown on annotation
callout when one is selected.

Now you can fix the compiler error. Open ViewController.swift and scroll down to the
end of the file.

Replace addAnnotations() with the following:

private func addAnnotations() {

for business in businesses {

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guard let yelpCoordinate =

business.location.coordinate else {
continue
}

let coordinate = CLLocationCoordinate2D(

latitude: yelpCoordinate.latitude,
longitude: yelpCoordinate.longitude)

let name = business.name

let rating = business.rating
let image: UIImage

// 1
switch rating {
case 0.0..<3.5:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
case 3.5..<4.0:
image = UIImage(named: "meh")!
case 4.0..<4.75:
image = UIImage(named: "good")!
case 4.75...5.0:
image = UIImage(named: "great")!
default:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
}

let annotation = BusinessMapViewModel(

coordinate: coordinate,
name: name,
rating: rating,
image: image)
mapView.addAnnotation(annotation)
}
}

This method is similar to before, except now you’re switching on rating (see // 1) to
determine which image to use. High-quality caffeine is like catnip for developers, so you
label anything less than 3.5 stars as “bad”. You gotta have high standards, right? ;]

Build and run your app. It should now look... the same? What gives?

The map doesn’t know about image. Rather, you’re expected to override a delegate
method to provide custom pin annotation images. That’s why it looks the same as
before.

Add the following method right after addAnnotations():

public func mapView(_ mapView: MKMapView,

viewFor annotation: MKAnnotation)
-> MKAnnotationView? {
guard let viewModel =
annotation as? BusinessMapViewModel else {
return nil

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let identifier = "business"

let annotationView: MKAnnotationView
if let existingView = mapView.dequeueReusableAnnotationView(
withIdentifier: identifier) {
annotationView = existingView
} else {
annotationView = MKAnnotationView(
annotation: viewModel,
reuseIdentifier: identifier)
}

annotationView.image = viewModel.image
annotationView.canShowCallout = true
return annotationView
}

This simply creates an MKAnnotationView, which shows the correct image for the given
annotation; this is one of your BusinessMapViewModel objects.

Build and run, and you should see the custom images! Tap on one, and you’ll see the
coffee shop’s name and rating.

It appears most San Francisco coffee shops are actually 4 stars or above, and you can
now find the very best shops at a glance.

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Key points
You learned about the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern in this chapter. Here
are its key points:

• MVVM helps slim down view controllers, making them easier to work with. Thus
combatting the "Massive View Controller" problem.

• View models are classes that take objects and transform them into different objects,
which can be passed into the view controller and displayed on the view. They’re
especially useful for converting computed properties such as Date or Decimal into a
String or something else that actually can be shown in a UILabel or UIView.

• If you’re only using the view model with one view, it can be good to put all the
configurations into the view model. However, if you’re using more than one view, you
might find that putting all the logic in the view model clutters it. Having the
configure code separated into each view may be simpler.

• MVC may be a better starting point if your app is small. As your app’s requirements
change, you’ll likely need to choose different design patterns based on your changing
requirements.

You've added a really nice feature to Coffee Quest that shows coffee shops by rating!
However, there's still a lot more you can do with this app. Continue onto the next
chapter to learn about the factory pattern and continue building out Coffee Quest.

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11 Chapter 11: Factory Pattern
By Jay Strawn

The factory pattern is a creational pattern that provides a way to make objects without
exposing creation logic. It involves two types:

1. The factory creates objects.

2. The products are the objects that are created.

Technically, there are multiple “flavors” of this pattern, including simple factory,
abstract factory and others. However, each of these share a common goal: to isolate
object creation logic within its own construct.

In this chapter, you’ll be add onto the previous chapter’s project, Coffee Quest, to learn
about a simple factory. It creates objects of a common type or protocol, and the
factory’s type itself is known and used by consumers directly.

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When should you use it?

Use the factory pattern whenever you want to separate out product creation logic,
instead of having consumers create products directly.

A factory is very useful when you have a group of related products, such as polymorphic
subclasses or several objects that implement the same protocol. For example, you can
use a factory to inspect a network response and turn it into a concrete model subtype.

A factory is also useful when you have a single product type, but it requires
dependencies or information to be provided to create it. For example, you can use a
factory to create a “job applicant response” email: The factory can generate email
details depending on whether the candidate was accepted, rejected or needs to be
interviewed.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, then open the Factory
page. As mentioned above, you’ll create a factory to generate job applicant response
emails. Add the following after Code Example:

import Foundation

public struct JobApplicant {

public let name: String
public let email: String
public var status: Status

public enum Status {

case new
case interview
case hired
case rejected
}
}

public struct Email {

public let subject: String
public let messageBody: String
public let recipientEmail: String
public let senderEmail: String
}

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Here, you’ve defined JobApplicant and Email models. An applicant has a name, email,
and four types of status. The email’s subject and messageBody will be different
depending on an applicant’s status.

Next, add the following code:

// 1
public struct EmailFactory {

// 2
public let senderEmail: String

// 3
public func createEmail(to recipient: JobApplicant) -> Email {
let subject: String
let messageBody: String

switch recipient.status {
case .new:
subject = "We Received Your Application"
messageBody = "Thanks for applying for a job here! " +
"You should hear from us in 17-42 business days."

case .interview:
subject = "We Want to Interview You"
messageBody = "Thanks for your resume, \(recipient.name)! " +
"Can you come in for an interview in 30 minutes?"

case .hired:
subject = "We Want to Hire You"
messageBody = "Congratulations, \(recipient.name)! " +
"We liked your code, and you smelled nice. " +
"We want to offer you a position! Cha-ching! $$$"

case .rejected:
subject = "Thanks for Your Application"
messageBody = "Thank you for applying, \(recipient.name)! " +
"We have decided to move forward with other candidates. " +
"Please remember to wear pants next time!"
}

return Email(subject: subject,

messageBody: messageBody,
recipientEmail: recipient.email,
senderEmail: senderEmail)
}
}

Here’s what you’re doing above:

1. Create an EmailFactory struct.

2. Create a public property for senderEmail. You set this property within the
EmailFactory initializer.

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3. Create a function named createEmail that takes a JobApplicant and returns an

Email. Inside createEmail, you’ve added a switch case for the JobApplicant’s status
to populate the subject and messageBody variables with appropriate data for the
email.

Now the email templates have been constructed, it’s time to use your factory on a
prospective applicant!

Add the following code below your EmailFactory definition:

var jackson = JobApplicant(name: "Jackson Smith",

email: "[email protected]",
status: .new)

let emailFactory =
EmailFactory(senderEmail: "[email protected]")

// New
print(emailFactory.createEmail(to: jackson), "\n")

// Interview
jackson.status = .interview
print(emailFactory.createEmail(to: jackson), "\n")

// Hired
jackson.status = .hired
print(emailFactory.createEmail(to: jackson), "\n")

Here, you’re creating a new JobApplicant named “Jackson Smith”. Next, you create a
new EmailFactory instance, and finally, you use the instance to generate emails based
on the JobApplicant object status property.

Looks like Jackson will be getting a job soon. He probably set himself apart from other
applicants by impressing Ray’s Coffee Co. with his extensive knowledge of design
patterns!

What should you be careful about?

Not all polymorphic objects require a factory. If your objects are very simple, you can
always put the creation logic directly in the consumer, such as a view controller itself.

Alternatively, if your object requires a series of steps to build it, you may be better off
using the builder pattern or another pattern instead.

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Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Coffee Quest app from the previous chapter. If you skipped the
previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate to where you
downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\CoffeeQuest\CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace (not .xcodeproj) in Xcode.

Note: If you opt to start fresh, then you’ll need to open up APIKeys.swift and add
your Yelp API key. See Chapter 10, “Model-View-ViewModel Pattern” for
instructions on how to generate this.

You’ll use the factory pattern to improve the mechanism behind changing icons based
on their Yelp rating.

First, right-click on the CoffeeQuest group and create a new group named Factories.
Next, right-click on the Factories group and select New File.... Select iOS ▸ Swift File
and click Next. Call it AnnotationFactory.swift and click Create. Your folder structure
should look similar to the one below:

Finally, replace the contents of AnnotationFactory.swift with the following:

import UIKit
import MapKit
import YelpAPI

public class AnnotationFactory {

public func createBusinessMapViewModel(

for business: YLPBusiness) -> BusinessMapViewModel? {

guard
let yelpCoordinate = business.location.coordinate else {

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return nil
}

let coordinate =
CLLocationCoordinate2D(
latitude: yelpCoordinate.latitude,
longitude: yelpCoordinate.longitude)

let name = business.name

let rating = business.rating
let image: UIImage
switch rating {
case 3.0..<3.5:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
case 3.5..<4.0:
image = UIImage(named: "meh")!
case 4.0..<4.75:
image = UIImage(named: "good")!
case 4.75...5.0:
image = UIImage(named: "great")!
default:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
}
return BusinessMapViewModel(coordinate: coordinate,
image: image,
name: name,
rating: rating)
}
}

This should look familiar (if you’ve read the previous chapters!). It’s the code added in
the previous chapter where you create the BusinessMapViewModel for the given coffee
shop.

This is your first factory! When you employ the factory pattern, it will often feel like
you’re factoring out code, like you are here. Any other component of your app that
wants to create a BusinessMapViewModel from a coffee shop model can do so now.

This means when the project gets larger, changing map annotations is less likely to
break coupled modules because all the transformation logic is contained in one place!

Add a new level of coffee rating to your factory called "terrible" for anything less than
3 stars. I know; I’m a coffee snob! Your switch statement should look like the following:

switch rating {
case 0.0..<3.0:
image = UIImage(named: "terrible")!
case 3.0..<3.5:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
case 3.5..<4.0:
image = UIImage(named: "meh")!
case 4.0..<4.75:
image = UIImage(named: "good")!

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case 4.75...5.0:
image = UIImage(named: "great")!
default:
image = UIImage(named: "bad")!
}

This is an example of how factories cannot be closed for modification, as you need to
add and remove cases to make different objects.

Just as you did in the view controller, you’re switching on rating to determine which
image to use.

Open ViewController.swift and add the following property below // MARK: -

Properties :

public let annotationFactory = AnnotationFactory()

Finally, replace addAnnotations() with the following code:

private func addAnnotations() {

for business in businesses {
guard let viewModel =
annotationFactory.createBusinessMapViewModel(
for: business) else {
continue
}
mapView.addAnnotation(viewModel)
}
}

Time for your view controller to actually use this factory! The factory creates a
businessMapViewModel for each business returned in the Yelp search.

Build and run to verify that everything works as before.

Key points
You learned about the factory pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• A factory’s goal is to isolate object creation logic within its own construct.

• A factory is most useful if you have a group of related products, or if you cannot
create an object until more information is supplied (such as completing a network
call, or waiting on user input).

• The factory method adds a layer of abstraction to create objects, which reduces
duplicate code.

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You’ve once again slimmed down the view controller. Not much has changed visually in
your app, but implementing a factory allows for easy changes as projects inevitably
grow larger.

You might have noticed that your factory can only take a YLPBusiness from the Yelp
API. What if you wanted to switch to a different service, such as Google Places? It would
be a good idea to rewrite your code so you can take any third-party class and convert it
into a more generic Business type. You’ll do this in the next chapter using an adapter
pattern.

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12 Chapter 12: Adapter
Pattern
By Jay Strawn

The adapter pattern is a behavioral pattern that allows incompatible types to work
together. It involves four components:

1. An object using an adapter is the object that depends on the new protocol.

2. The new protocol is the desired protocol for use.

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3. A legacy object existed before the protocol was made and cannot be modified
directly to conform to it.

4. An adapter is created to conform to the protocol and passes calls onto the legacy
object.

A great example of a physical adapter comes to mind when you consider the latest
iPhone — there’s no headphone jack! If you want to plug your 3.5mm headphones into
the lightning port, you need an adapter with a lightning connector on one end and a
3.5mm jack on the other.

This is essentially what the Adapter Pattern is about: connecting two elements that
otherwise won’t “fit” with each other.

In this chapter, you’ll be continuing the previous chapter’s project, Coffee Quest, and
making adapter classes for the Yelp SDK’s objects so they can work with your custom
classes.

When should you use it?

Classes, modules, and functions can’t always be modified, especially if they’re from a
third-party library. Sometimes you have to adapt instead!

You can create an adapter either by extending an existing class, or creating a new
adapter class. This chapter will show you how to do both.

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Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, then open the Adapter
page.

For this example, you’ll adapt a third-party authentication service to work with an app’s
internal authentication service. Add the following code, after Code Example:

import Foundation

public class GoogleAuthenticator {

public func login(
email: String,
password: String,
completion: @escaping (GoogleUser?, Error?) -> Void) {

// Make networking calls, which return a `Token`

let token = "special-token-value"

let user = GoogleUser(email: email,

password: password,
token: token)
completion(user, nil)
}
}

public struct GoogleUser {

public var email: String
public var password: String
public var token: String
}

You should imagine that GoogleAuthenticator and GoogleUser are third-party classes
and cannot be directly edited. Of course, the actual Google authenticator would be a lot
more complex; we’ve just named this one “Google” as an example.

Google’s login function returns a String which is used as the value for a Token. You
might pass this token via a GET request like this:

• https://api.examplegoogleurl.com/items/item123?token=special-token-value
Or, more commonly, you’d set this token as an authentication header. For example, this
could be a JSON Web Token (JWT; see https://jwt.io/). If you haven’t used JWTs before,
that’s okay. You don’t need any knowledge about them to complete this chapter. JWTs
simply serve as a common use case to illustrate this point. Check them out if you’re
interested though.

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Next, add the following code to the end of the playground:

// AuthenticationService
public protocol AuthenticationService {
func login(email: String,
password: String,
success: @escaping (User, Token) -> Void,
failure: @escaping (Error?) -> Void)
}

public struct User {

public let email: String
public let password: String
}

public struct Token {

public let value: String
}

This is the authentication protocol for your app. It requires an email and password.
Upon success, it will return a User and a Token. Otherwise, it will return an Error.

Instead of depending on GoogleAuthenticator directly, your app uses this protocol. For
example, you may support multiple authentication mechanisms — Google, Facebook
and others — depending on which one a user selects to use.

While you could extend GoogleAuthenticator to make it conform to

AuthenticationService — which is also a form of the adapter pattern! — you can also
create an actual Adapter class. Add the following code next to do so:

// 1
public class GoogleAuthenticatorAdapter: AuthenticationService {

// 2
private var authenticator = GoogleAuthenticator()

// 3
public func login(email: String,
password: String,
success: @escaping (User, Token) -> Void,
failure: @escaping (Error?) -> Void) {

authenticator.login(email: email, password: password) {

(googleUser, error) in

guard let googleUser = googleUser else {

failure(error)
return
}

// 4
let user = User(email: googleUser.email,
password: googleUser.password)

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let token = Token(value: googleUser.token)

success(user, token)
}
}
}

Here’s what you did:

1. You made an adapter class called GoogleAuthenticationAdapter that conforms to

the AuthenticationService protocol and wraps the Google token value so it can be
used outside of the Google class.

2. You created a private reference to GoogleAuthenticator.

3. You added the AuthenticationService login function as required by the protocol.

Inside your function, you called Google’s login function to return a GoogleUser.
Then, you populated Google’s login function with the email and password fields
from the protocol function.

4. You created a User and Token from the GoogleUser and returned these two values at
the end of your login function.

Wrapping the Google token like this has some benefits. If Google were to change the
structure of their API and your app stopped working, you’d only need to make
compatibility changes in one place: the adapter.

Add the following code next to try it out:

// MARK: - Example
// 1
var authService: AuthenticationService = GoogleAuthenticatorAdapter()
// 2
authService.login(
email: "[email protected]", password: "password",
success: { user, token in
// 3
print("Auth succeeded: \(user.email), \(token.value)")

}, failure: { error in
// 4
if let error = error {
print("Auth failed with error: \(error)")
} else {
print("Auth failed with error: no error provided")
}
})

Here’s what you did:

1. You explicitly declare authService as a type of AuthenticationService, and you set

this to a new instance of GoogleAuthenticatorAdapter.

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2. You then call login(email:success:failure, which is declared within the

AuthenticationService protocol.

3. On success, you print out user.email and token.value.

4. On error, you simply print the error if one is provided, or otherwise you print out
"no error provided".

You should see this printed to the console:

Auth succeeded: [email protected], special-token-value

If your app supports other APIs like Facebook login, you can easily make adapters to
support those as well.

What should you be careful about?

Protocols are a requirement for the adapter design pattern. You’re adapting an existing
interface, and the protocol ensures your adapter will work with the target.

Remember not to jump to the adapter pattern unless you recognize there’s a possibility
for change. It’s always preferable to have classes that can easily work together, but
there will often be situations where classes need to be connected by an adapter.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Coffee Quest app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\CoffeeQuest\CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace (not .xcodeproj) in Xcode.

Note: If you opt to start fresh, then you’ll need to open up APIKeys.swift and add
your Yelp API key. See Chapter 10, “Model-View-ViewModel Pattern” for
instructions on how to generate this.

First, right click on CoffeeQuest and select New File.... Select iOS ▸ Swift File and
click Next. Call it Protocols.swift and click Create. Next, right-click this file and select
New group from selection. Finally, name the group Models.

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If all goes well, you should see something similar to the following:

The previous model in this project was YLPBusiness. However, if you want to include
other APIs like Google Places or MapKit queries, it’s better to define your own Business
model.

Replace the contents of Protocols.swift with the following:

import Foundation
import MapKit
import YelpAPI

protocol SearchResultsProtocol {
func adaptSearchResultsFromYLP() -> SearchResults
}

protocol BusinessProtocol {
func adaptBusinessFromYLP() -> Business
}

public struct SearchResults {

var businesses: [Business]
var total: UInt
}

public struct Business {

var name: String
var rating: Double
var location: CLLocationCoordinate2D
}

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You’re going to replace instances of YLPBusiness with Business and YLPSearch with
SearchResults. How? This is where the adapter comes in.

You’re going to extend the YLPBusiness and YLPSearch classes to make them conform to
BusinessProtocol and SearchResultsProtocol. By doing so, you will have extended the
Yelp classes to add a function that will take their information and create more generic
Business and SearchResults objects instead.

To create SearchResults you’ll need the businesses and total properties from
YLPSearch. To create a Business, you’ll only need the name, rating, and location
properties in YLPBusiness.

Still in Protocols.swift add the following code to the end of the file:

// 1
extension YLPLocation {
func getCoordinateFromYLP() -> CLLocationCoordinate2D {
let coordinate =
CLLocationCoordinate2DMake(self.coordinate!.latitude,
self.coordinate!.longitude)
return coordinate
}
}

// 2
extension YLPBusiness: BusinessProtocol {
func adaptBusinessFromYLP() -> Business {
return Business(
name: self.name,
rating: self.rating,
location: self.location.getCoordinateFromYLP())
}
}

// 3
extension YLPSearch: SearchResultsProtocol {
func adaptSearchResultsFromYLP() -> SearchResults {
let businesses = self.businesses
.map { (business: YLPBusiness) in
business.adaptBusinessFromYLP()
}

return SearchResults(businesses: businesses,

total: self.total)
}
}

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You’ve added new functions to Yelp’s classes through extensions. Now each class has a
function which returns a more generic type instead of Yelp-specific types. Here’s what
each does:

1. The first extension on YLPLocation will adapt coordinates from YLPLocation into
the more standard CLLocationCoordinate2D.

2. The second extension for YLPBusiness will return a Business with the same
properties as the Yelp business. You’re using the YLPLocation extension to return
coordinates for the Business, so in this extension, you’re adapting using another
adapter.

3. Finally, you extend YLPSearch so it can be converted into a SearchResults object

with an array of Business objects. Now it’s time to put these to use.

Open ViewController.swift, and replace:

public var businesses: [YLPBusiness] = []

...with the following code:

public var businesses: [Business] = []

You should receive two errors after making this change. Scroll down to the first one in
searchForBusinesses(). This is happening because now you need an array of Business
objects instead of YLPBusiness objects.

Find the guard let just a few lines above the error line and change it to the following:

guard
let searchResult = searchResult?.adaptSearchResultsFromYLP(),
error == nil else {

This makes use of the adapter you wrote previously to convert the search results into an
array of Business objects.

Next, scroll to the second error in addAnnotations(). The error in your view controller
is a result of the way that AnnotationFactory is set up.

Open AnnotationFactory.swift. First, change the signature of

createBusinessMapViewModel(for:) to the following:

public func createBusinessMapViewModel(

for business: Business) -> BusinessMapViewModel? {

Instead of taking in a YLPBusiness, you’re now taking in Business. This will fix the error
in the previous file — however, you now have errors in this file! Let’s fix those.

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First, you can simply remove the following lines:

guard let yelpCoordinate = business.location.coordinate else {

return nil
}

let coordinate = CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude:

yelpCoordinate.latitude,
longitude:
yelpCoordinate.longitude)

This was previously handling the conversion of the YLPBusiness object’s location into a
CLLocationCoordinate2D, but that is now handled by your adapter.

Finally, change the return line to the following:

return BusinessMapViewModel(coordinate: business.location,

image: image,
name: name,
rating: rating)

The final change simply makes use of the Business object’s location, instead of the
previously computed location.

Now that you’ve adapted your code, build and run to confirm everything still works.

Key points
You learned about the adapter pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The adapter pattern is useful when working with classes from third party libraries
that cannot be modified. You can use protocols to have them work with project’s
custom classes.

• To use an adapter, you can either extend the legacy object, or make a new adapter
class.

• The adapter pattern allows you to reuse a class even if it lacks required components
or has incompatible components with required objects.

• In A Briefer History of Time, Steven Hawking said, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt
to change.” Maybe he wasn’t talking about the adapter pattern exactly, but this idea
is an important component in this pattern and many others: plan ahead for future
changes.

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Coffee Quest is getting better with every refactor! Once again, not much has changed in
the app from a visual perspective, but now it will be so much easier to add other APIs
and have them work seamlessly with your Business objects.

In the next chapter, you’ll learn about the iterator pattern. The current mechanism of
iterating through businesses in the view controller is less than ideal. You’ll learn how to
extend classes to make them iterable and easier to manage.

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13 Chapter 13: Iterator Pattern
By Jay Strawn

The iterator pattern is a behavioral pattern that provides a standard way to loop
through a collection. This pattern involves two types:

1. The Swift IterableProtocol defines a type that can be iterated using a for in loop.

2. A custom object is an object you want to make iterable. Instead of conforming to

Iterable directly, however, you can conform to Sequence, which itself conforms to
Iterable. By doing so, you’ll get many higher-order functions, including map, filter
and more, for free.

What does “for free” mean? It means these useful built-in functions can be used on any
object that conforms to Sequence, which can save you from writing your own sorting,
splitting and comparing algorithms.

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If you’re new to these functions, visit http://bit.ly/sequence-protocol to learn more

about them.

In this chapter, you’ll be creating your own custom structs and making them conform to
the Sequence protocol, then using high order functions to sort the items within them.

When should you use it?

Use the iterator pattern when you have a class or struct that holds a group of ordered
objects, and you want to make it iterable using a for in loop.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, then open the Iterator
page.

You’ll be creating a queue in this example.

To quote the Swift Algorithm Club (http://bit.ly/swift-algorithm-club), "A queue is a list

where you can only insert new items at the back and remove items from the front. This
ensures that the first item you enqueue is also the first item you dequeue. First come,
first serve!"

Add the following right after Code Example:

import Foundation

// 1
public struct Queue<T> {
private var array: [T?] = []

// 2
private var head = 0

// 3
public var isEmpty: Bool {
return count == 0
}

// 4
public var count: Int {
return array.count - head
}

// 5

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public mutating func enqueue(_ element: T) {

array.append(element)
}

// 6
public mutating func dequeue() -> T? {
guard head < array.count,
let element = array[head] else {
return nil
}

array[head] = nil
head += 1

let percentage = Double(head)/Double(array.count)

if array.count > 50,
percentage > 0.25 {
array.removeFirst(head)
head = 0
}

return element
}
}

Here, you’ve created a queue containing an array. Here’s a breakdown of the code:

1. You’ve defined that Queue will contain an array of any type.

2. The head of the queue will be the index of the first element in the array.

3. There is an isEmpty bool to check if the queue is empty or not.

4. You’ve given Queue a count.

5. You have created an enqueue function for adding elements to the queue.

6. The dequeue function is for removing the first element of the queue. This function’s
logic is set up to help keep you from having nil objects in your array.

Next, add the following code to test the queue:

public struct Ticket {

var description: String
var priority: PriorityType

enum PriorityType {
case low
case medium
case high
}

init(description: String, priority: PriorityType) {

self.description = description
self.priority = priority

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}
}

var queue = Queue<Ticket>()

queue.enqueue(Ticket(
description: "Wireframe Tinder for dogs app",
priority: .low))
queue.enqueue(Ticket(
description: "Set up 4k monitor for Josh",
priority: .medium))
queue.enqueue(Ticket(
description: "There is smoke coming out of my laptop",
priority: .high))
queue.enqueue(Ticket(
description: "Put googly eyes on the Roomba",
priority: .low))
queue.dequeue()

The queue has four items, which becomes three once you’ve successfully dequeued the
first ticket.

In a real use-case scenario, you’ll definitely want to be able to sort these tickets by
priority. With the way things are now, you’d need to write a sorting function with a lot
of if statements. Save yourself some time and instead use one of Swift’s built-in sorting
functions.

Currently, if you attempt to use a for in loop or sorted() on queue, you’ll get an error.
You need to make your Queue struct conform to the Sequence protocol. Add the
following beneath your Queue struct:

extension Queue: Sequence {

public func makeIterator()
-> IndexingIterator<ArraySlice<T?>> {

let nonEmptyValues = array[head ..< array.count]

return nonEmptyValues.makeIterator()
}
}

Like with dequeue, you want to make sure you’re not exposing nil objects and only
iterate through non-empty values.

There are two required parts when conforming the Sequence protocol. The first is your
associated type, which is your Iterator. In the code above, IndexingIterator is your
associated type, which is the default iterator for any collection that doesn’t declare its
own.

The second part is the Iterator protocol, which is the required makeIterator function.
It constructs an iterator for your class or struct.

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Add the following to the bottom of the file:

print("List of Tickets in queue:")

for ticket in queue {
print(ticket?.description ?? "No Description")
}

This iterates through your tickets and prints them.

Note that you may get an error while printing tickets that reads SWIFT RUNTIME
BUG: unable to demangle type of field. This appears to be an Xcode bug.
However, it shouldn't affect your code execution, and you can simply ignore it.

Before you use a sequence-specific sort function, scroll back up and add the following
extension underneath the Ticket struct:

extension Ticket {
var sortIndex : Int {
switch self.priority {
case .low:
return 0
case .medium:
return 1
case .high:
return 2
}
}
}

Assigning numeric values to the priority levels will make sorting easier. Sort the tickets
using their sortIndex as reference, add the following code at the end of the file:

let sortedTickets = queue.sorted {

$0!.sortIndex > ($1?.sortIndex)!
}
var sortedQueue = Queue<Ticket>()

for ticket in sortedTickets {

sortedQueue.enqueue(ticket!)
}

print("\n")
print("Tickets sorted by priority:")
for ticket in sortedQueue {
print(ticket?.description ?? "No Description")
}

The sorting function returns a regular array, so to have a sorted queue, you enqueue
each array item into a new queue. The ability to sort through groups so easily is a
powerful feature, and becomes more valuable as your lists and queues get larger.

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What should you be careful about?

There is a protocol named IteratorProtocol, which allows you to customize how your
object is iterated. You simply implement a next() method that returns the next object
in the iteration. However, you’ll probably never need to conform to IteratorProtocol
directly.

Even if you need a custom iterator, it’s almost always better to conform to Sequence and
provide custom next() logic, instead of conforming to IteratorProtocol directly.

You can find more information about IteratorProtocol and how it works with Sequence
at http://bit.ly/iterator-protocol.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue building onto Coffee Quest from the previous chapter. You’ll finally be
adding functionality to the switch in the upper-right corner!

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\CoffeeQuest\CoffeeQuest.xcworkspace (not .xcodeproj!) in Xcode.

Note: If you opt to start fresh, then you’ll need to open up APIKeys.swift and add
your Yelp API key. See Chapter 10, “Model-View-ViewModel Pattern” for
instructions on how to generate this.

Go to the Models group and select File ▸ New ▸ File... and choose Swift File. Name
the new file Filter.swift. Create a Filter struct by adding the following code
underneath import Foundation:

public struct Filter {

public let filter: (Business) -> Bool
public var businesses: [Business]

public static func identity() -> Filter {

return Filter(filter: { _ in return true }, businesses: [])
}

public static func starRating(

atLeast starRating: Double) -> Filter {
return Filter(filter: { $0.rating >= starRating },
businesses: [])
}

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public func filterBusinesses() -> [Business] {

return businesses.filter (filter)
}
}

extension Filter: Sequence {

public func makeIterator() -> IndexingIterator<[Business]> {

return filterBusinesses().makeIterator()
}
}

This struct holds an array of Business objects and a filter closure. You can instantiate
the class with identity(), adjust the filter’s parameters with starRating(), and apply
the filter with filterBusiness().

Like with the playground, you can’t apply the actual filter function without
conforming to Sequence and setting the Iterator.

With your filter wrapper set up, you can now use this logic in the ViewController. Open
ViewController.swift. Add the following line of code to the list of properties at the top:

public var filter: Filter!

Next, in the searchForBusinesses function, add the following right underneath the line
that reads self.businesses = searchResult.businesses and above the line with
DispatchQueue.main.async:

self.filter = Filter.identity()
for business in self.businesses {
self.filter.businesses.append(business)
}

Right after you complete the Yelp search, you want to instantiate the filter property
you declared above and store the Business objects inside.

Next, you want to add a new feature and show only the best coffee shops when the
switch in the corner is toggled on. Find businessFilterToggleChanged(_:) and make it
look like the following:

@IBAction func businessFilterToggleChanged(_ sender: UISwitch) {

if sender.isOn {
filter = Filter.starRating(atLeast: 4.75)
} else {
filter = Filter.starRating(atLeast: 0.0)
}

for business in businesses {

filter.businesses.append(business)
}

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addAnnotations()
}

Here is where you actually set the level of filter you’re going to use. The businesses
property will always hold all of the returned business objects, the the array of business
in Filter will be determined by the selected minimum star rating you wish to display.

Now that you’ve set the type of filter and the array to call the filter function on, scroll
down to addAnnotations and edit the function to look like the following:

public func addAnnotations() {

// 1
mapView.removeAnnotations(mapView.annotations)

// 2
filter.businesses = filter.filterBusinesses()

// 3
for business in filter.businesses {
guard let viewModel =
annotationFactory.createBusinessMapViewModel(
for: business) else {
continue
}

mapView.addAnnotation(viewModel)
}
}

The changes here are:

1. You remove all current annotations each time this function is called. This prevents
businesses you want to exclude from remaining on the map.

2. Use filterBusinesses to actually apply the filter to the array of Business stored in
filter.

3. Create an annotation for each business in filter instead of the array that always
contains your unfiltered search results.

Build and run the app. You should see everything is still working, except you’re now
using the Iterator pattern to loop through the objects.

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Key points
You learned about the iterator pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The iterator pattern provides a standard way to loop through a collection using a for
in syntax.

• It’s better to make your custom objects conform to Sequence, instead of

IteratorProtocol directly.

• By conforming to Sequence, you will get higher-order functions like map and filter
for free.

Where to go from here?

You've added a lot of great functionality to Coffee Question over the last few chapters!
However, there's still many more features you could add:

• Advanced filtering and searching options

• Custom address input instead of just searching nearby

• Saving and displaying favorited coffee shops

Each of these are possible using the existing patterns you’ve learned so far. Feel free to
continue building out Coffee Quest as much as you like.

When you're ready, continue onto the next chapter to learn about the prototype design
pattern and build a new example app.

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14 Chapter 14: Prototype
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The prototype pattern is a creational pattern that allows an object to copy itself. It
involves two types:

1. A copying protocol that declares copy methods.

2. A prototype class that conforms to the copying protocol.

There are actually two different types of copies: shallow and deep.

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A shallow copy creates a new object instance, but doesn’t copy its properties. Any
properties that are reference types still point to the same original objects. For example,
whenever you copy a Swift Array, which is a struct and thereby happens automatically
on assignment, a new array instance is created but its elements aren’t duplicated.

A deep copy creates a new object instance and duplicates each property as well. For
example, if you deep copy an Array, each of its elements are copied too. Swift doesn’t
provide a deep copy method on Array by default, so you’ll create one in this chapter!

When should you use it?

Use this pattern to enable an object to copy itself.

For example, Foundation defines the NSCopying protocol. However, this protocol was
designed for Objective-C, and unfortunately, it doesn’t work that well in Swift. You can
still use it, but you’ll wind up writing more boilerplate code yourself.

Instead, you’ll implement your own Copying protocol in this chapter. You’ll learn about
the prototype pattern in depth this way, and your resulting implementation will be
more Swifty too!

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then
open the Prototype page.

For the example, you’ll create a Copying protocol and a Monster class that conforms to
that protocol. Add the following after Code Example:

public protocol Copying: class {

// 1
init(_ prototype: Self)
}

extension Copying {
// 2
public func copy() -> Self {
return type(of: self).init(self)
}
}

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1. You first declare a required initializer, init(_ prototype: Self). This is called a
copy initializer as its purpose is to create a new class instance using an existing
instance.

2. You normally won’t call the copy initializer directly. Instead, you’ll simply call
copy() on a conforming Copying class instance that you want to copy.

Since you declared the copy initializer within the protocol itself, copy() is extremely
simple. It determines the current type by calling type(of: self), and it then calls
the copy initializer, passing in the self instance. Thereby, even if you create a
subclass of a type that conforms to Copying, copy() will function correctly.

Add the following code next:

// 1
public class Monster: Copying {

public var health: Int

public var level: Int

public init(health: Int, level: Int) {

self.health = health
self.level = level
}

// 2
public required convenience init(_ monster: Monster) {
self.init(health: monster.health, level: monster.level)
}
}

Here’s what that code does:

1. This declares a simple Monster type, which conforms to Copying and has properties
for health and level.

2. In order to satisfy Copying, you must declare init(_ prototype:) as required.

However, you’re allowed to mark this as convenience and call another designated
initializer, which is exactly what you do.

Add this code next:

// 1
public class EyeballMonster: Monster {

public var redness = 0

// 2
public init(health: Int, level: Int, redness: Int) {
self.redness = redness
super.init(health: health, level: level)

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// 3
public required convenience init(_ prototype: Monster) {
let eyeballMonster = prototype as! EyeballMonster
self.init(health: eyeballMonster.health,
level: eyeballMonster.level,
redness: eyeballMonster.redness)
}
}

Taking the above code comment-by-comment:

1. In a real app, you’d likely have Monster subclasses as well, which would add
additional properties and functionality. Here, you declare an EyeballMonster, which
adds a terrifying new property, redness. Oooh, it’s so red and icky! Don’t touch that
eyeball!

2. Since you added a new property, you also need to set its value upon initialization.
To do so, you create a new designated initializer: init(health:level:redness:).

3. Since you created a new initializer, you must also provide all other required
initializers. Note that you need to implement this with the general type, Monster,
and then cast it to an EyeballMonster. That’s because specializing to
EyeballMonster would mean that it couldn’t take another subclass of Monster,
which would break the condition that this is overriding the required initializer from
Monster.

You’re now ready to try out these classes! Add the following:

let monster = Monster(health: 700, level: 37)

let monster2 = monster.copy()
print("Watch out! That monster's level is \(monster2.level)!")

Here, you create a new monster, create a copy named monster2 and then print
monster2.level. You should see this output in the console:

Watch out! That monster's level is 37!

Enter the following next:

let eyeball = EyeballMonster(health: 3002, level: 60,

redness: 999)
let eyeball2 = eyeball.copy()
print("Eww! Its eyeball redness is \(eyeball2.redness)!")

You here prove that you can indeed create a copy of EyeBallMonster. You should see
this output in the console:

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Eww! Its eyeball redness is 999!

What happens if you try to create an EyeballMonster from a Monster ? Enter the
following last:

let eyeballMonster3 = EyeballMonster(monster)

This compiles fine, but it causes a runtime exception. This is due to the forced cast you
performed earlier, where you called prototype as! EyeballMonster.

Comment out this line so the playground can run again.

Ideally, you should not allow calls to init(_ monster:) on any subclasses of Monster.
Instead, you should always call copy().

You can indicate this to the developer by marking the subclass method as “unavailable.”
Add the following line right before the subclass’s init(_ monster:):

@available(*, unavailable, message: "Call copy() instead")

Then, uncomment the line for eyeballMonster3, and you’ll get this error message in the
playground console:

error: 'init' is unavailable: Call copy() instead

Great, this prevents calling this method directly! Go ahead and comment out the line
again so the playground can run.

What should you be careful about?

As shown in the playground example, by default it’s possible to pass a superclass
instance to a subclass’s copy initializer. This may not be a problem if a subclass can be
fully initialized from a superclass instance. However, if the subclass adds any new
properties, it may not be possible to initialize it from a superclass instance.

To mitigate this issue, you can mark the subclass copy initializer as “unavailable.” In
response, the compiler will refuse to compile any direct calls to this method.

It’s still possible to call the method indirectly, like copy() does. However, this safeguard
should be "good enough" for most use cases.

If this doesn’t prevent issues for your use case, you’ll need to consider how exactly you
want to handle it. For example, you may print an error message to the console and
crash, or you may handle it by providing default values instead.

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Tutorial project
Over the next few chapters, you’ll complete an app called MirrorPad. This is a drawing
app that allows users to create animated mirror-image drawings.

In the Starter directory, open MirrorPad\MirrorPad.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Build and run to try out the app. Draw into the top-left view by using your finger on a
real device or mouse on the simulator.

Then press Animate, and your drawing will be re-drawn animated on screen. Super
cool!

However, the app is supposed to copy and reflect the image into each of the other views.
This currently isn’t implemented because the app doesn’t know how to copy anything!
It’s your job to fix this.

Open DrawView.swift and check out this class. This is the heart of the application: it
creates a new LineShape object when touchesBegan is called and adds points to
LineShape when touchesMoved is called.

Next, open LineShape.swift and check out this class. This is a subclass of CAShapeLayer
(see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/quartzcore/cashapelayer), which is
used to create simple, light-weight shape layers from paths. If LineShape were copyable,
you’d be able to duplicate each of them into the other DrawView instances on screen.

First, however, you actually need to define what “copyable” actually means!

Under the Protocols group in the File hierarchy, create a new Swift file named
Copying.swift and replace its contents with the following:

// 1
public protocol Copying {
init(_ prototype: Self)
}

extension Copying {
public func copy() -> Self {
return type(of: self).init(self)
}

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// 2
extension Array where Element: Copying {
public func deepCopy() -> [Element] {
return map { $0.copy() }
}
}

1. You first declare a new Copying protocol, which is exactly the same as the one in the
playground example.

2. You then create an extension on Array when its Element conforms to Copying.
Therein, you create a new method called deepCopy(), which uses map to create a new
array where each element is generated by calling copy().

Return back to LineShape.swift, and replace the class declaration with the following:

public class LineShape: CAShapeLayer, Copying {

Then, replace init(layer: Any) with the following:

public override convenience init(layer: Any) {

let lineShape = layer as! LineShape
self.init(lineShape)
}

public required init(_ prototype: LineShape) {

bezierPath = prototype.bezierPath.copy() as! UIBezierPath
super.init(layer: prototype)

fillColor = nil
lineWidth = prototype.lineWidth
path = bezierPath.cgPath
strokeColor = prototype.strokeColor
}

init(layer:) looks very familiar to init(_ prototype:). This method is used internally
by Core Animation during layer animations. In order to actually conform to Copying,
however, the method signature must exactly match init(_:). Thereby, you simply hand
off init(layer:) to init(_:), and both Core Animation and Copying requirements are
satisfied.

You also need a method to actually copy each LineShape onto the DrawView. Open
DrawView.swift and add the following right before the ending class curly brace:

public func copyLines(from source: DrawView) {

layer.sublayers?.removeAll()
lines = source.lines.deepCopy()
lines.forEach { layer.addSublayer($0) }
}

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This method first removes all of the sublayers, which represent the existing LineShape
layers. It then creates a deepCopy from the DrawView that’s passed as the source. Lastly,
it adds each line to the layer.

Finally, you actually need to call this method whenever the Animate button on screen
is pressed. Open ViewController.swift and add the following right after the opening
curly brace for animatePressed(_:):

mirrorDrawViews.forEach { $0.copyLines(from: inputDrawView) }

mirrorDrawViews.forEach { $0.animate() }

This first iterates through each mirrorDrawView and copies the inputDrawView. It then
calls animate() on each mirrorDrawView to start the animation.

Build and run, draw into the top-left input view, and press Animate.

Key points
You learned about the prototype pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The prototype pattern enables an object to copy itself. It involves two types: a
copying protocol and a prototype.

• The copying protocol declares copy methods, and the prototype conforms to the
protocol.

• Foundation provides an NSCopying protocol, but it doesn’t work well in Swift. It’s easy
to roll your own Copying protocol, which eliminates reliance on Foundation or any
other framework entirely.

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• The key to creating a Copying protocol is creating a copy initializer with the form
init(_ prototype:).

In this chapter, you also implemented key functionality in MirrorPad. This is a pretty
neat app, but it does have some issues. For example, the app allows you to continue
drawing while it’s animating. You could try to hack a solution for this directly within
DrawView, but this class is already starting to get messy and hard to maintain. You'll use
another pattern to fix both of these problems: the state pattern.

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the state design pattern and continue
building out MirrorPad!

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15 Chapter 15: State Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The state pattern is a behavioral pattern that allows an object to change its behavior at
runtime. It does so by changing its current state. Here, “state” means the set of data
that describes how a given object should behave at a given time.

This pattern involves three types:

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1. The context is the object that has a current state and whose behavior changes.

2. The state protocol defines required methods and properties. Developers commonly
substitute a base state class in place of a protocol. By doing so, they can define
stored properties in the base, which isn’t possible using a protocol.

Even if a base class is used, it’s not intended to be instantiated directly. Rather, it’s
defined for the sole purpose of being subclassed. In other languages, this would be
an abstract class. Swift currently doesn’t have abstract classes, however, so this
class isn’t instantiated by convention only.

3. Concrete states conform to the state protocol, or if a base class is used instead,
they subclass the base. The context holds onto its current state, but it doesn’t know
its concrete state type. Instead, the context changes behavior using polymorphism:
concrete states define how the context should act. If you ever need a new behavior,
you define a new concrete state.

An important question remains, however: where do you actually put the code to change
the context’s current state? Within the context itself, the concrete states, or somewhere
else?

You may be surprised to find out that the state pattern doesn’t tell you where to put
state change logic! Instead, you’re responsible for deciding this. This is both a strength
and weakness of this pattern: It permits designs to be flexible, but at the same time, it
doesn’t provide complete guidance on how to implement this pattern.

You’ll learn two ways to implement state changes in this chapter. In the playground
example, you’ll put change logic within the context, and in the tutorial project, you’ll
let the concrete states themselves handle changes.

When should you use it?

Use the state pattern to create a system that has two or more states that it changes
between during its lifetime. The states may be either limited in number (a “closed“ set)
or unlimited (an “open” set). For example, a traffic light can be defined using a closed
set of “traffic light states.” In the simplest case, it progresses from green to yellow to
red to green again.

An animation engine can be defined as an open set of “animation states.” It has

unlimited different rotations, translations and other animations that it may progress
through during its lifetime.

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Both open- and closed-set implementations of the state pattern use polymorphism to
change behavior. As a result, you can often eliminate switch and if-else statements
using this pattern.

Instead of keeping track of complex conditions within the context, you pass through
calls to the current state; you’ll see how this works in both the playground example and
tutorial project. If you have a class with several switch or if-else statements, try to
define it using the state pattern instead. You’ll likely create a more flexible and easier
maintain system as a result.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then
open the State page.

You’ll implement the “traffic light” system mentioned above. Specifically, you’ll use
Core Graphics to draw a traffic light and change its "current state" from green to yellow
to red to green again.

Note: You’ll need a basic understanding of Core Graphics to fully understand this
playground example. At the very least, you should know a little about CALayer and
CAShapeLayer. If you’re new to Core Graphics, read our free tutorial about it here:
(http://bit.ly/rw-coregraphics).

Enter the following after Code example to define the context:

import UIKit
import PlaygroundSupport

// MARK: - Context
public class TrafficLight: UIView {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 1
public private(set) var canisterLayers: [CAShapeLayer] = []

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 2
@available(*, unavailable,
message: "Use init(canisterCount: frame:) instead")
public required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
fatalError("init(coder:) is not supported")
}

// 3
public init(canisterCount: Int = 3,

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frame: CGRect =
CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 160, height: 420)) {
super.init(frame: frame)
backgroundColor =
UIColor(red: 0.86, green: 0.64, blue: 0.25, alpha: 1)
createCanisterLayers(count: canisterCount)
}

// 4
private func createCanisterLayers(count: Int) {

}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first define a property for canisterLayers. This will hold onto the “traffic light
canister” layers. These layers will hold onto the green/yellow/red states as
sublayers.

2. To keep the playground simple, you won’t support init(coder:).

3. You declare init(canisterCount:frame:) as the designated initializer and provide

default values for both canisterCount and frame. You also set the backgroundColor
to a yellowish color and call createCanisterLayers(count:).

You’ll do the real work within createCanisterLayers(count:). Add the following to this
method:

// 1
let paddingPercentage: CGFloat = 0.2
let yTotalPadding = paddingPercentage * bounds.height
let yPadding = yTotalPadding / CGFloat(count + 1)

// 2
let canisterHeight = (bounds.height - yTotalPadding) / CGFloat(count)
let xPadding = (bounds.width - canisterHeight) / 2.0
var canisterFrame = CGRect(x: xPadding,
y: yPadding,
width: canisterHeight,
height: canisterHeight)

// 3
for _ in 0 ..< count {
let canisterShape = CAShapeLayer()
canisterShape.path = UIBezierPath(ovalIn: canisterFrame).cgPath
canisterShape.fillColor = UIColor.black.cgColor

layer.addSublayer(canisterShape)
canisterLayers.append(canisterShape)

canisterFrame.origin.y += (canisterFrame.height + yPadding)

}

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Taking it comment-by-comment:

1. You first calculate yTotalPadding as a percentage of bounds.height and then use

the result to determine each yPadding space. The total number of “padding spaces”
is equal to count (the number of canisters) + 1 (one extra space for the bottom).

2. Using yPadding, you calculate canisterHeight. To keep the canisters square, you use
canisterHeight for both the height and width of each canister. You then use
canisterHeight to calculate the xPadding required to center each canister.

Ultimately, you use xPadding, yPadding and canisterHeight to create

canisterFrame, which represents the frame for the first canister.

3. Using canisterFrame, you loop from 0 to count to create a canisterShape for the
required number of canisters, given by count. After creating each canisterShape,
you add it to canisterLayers. By keeping a reference to each canister layer, you’ll
later be able to add “traffic light state“ sublayers to them.

Add the following code to see your code in action:

let trafficLight = TrafficLight()

PlaygroundPage.current.liveView = trafficLight

Here, you create an instance of trafficLight and set it as the liveView for the
playground’s current page, which outputs to the Assistant editor. To see the output,
press View ▸ Assistant editor ▸ Show Assistant editor.

To prevent compiler errors as you continue modify this class, delete the two lines of
code you just added.

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To show the light states, you’re going to need to define a state protocol. Add the
following at the bottom of the playground page:

// MARK: - State Protocol

public protocol TrafficLightState: class {

// MARK: - Properties
// 1
var delay: TimeInterval { get }

// MARK: - Instance Methods

// 2
func apply(to context: TrafficLight)
}

1. You first declare a delay property, which defines the time interval a state should be
shown.

2. You then declare apply(to:), which each concrete state will need to implement.

Next, add the following properties to TrafficLight, right after canisterLayers. Ignore
the resulting compiler errors for now:

public private(set) var currentState: TrafficLightState

public private(set) var states: [TrafficLightState]

As the names imply, you’ll use currentState to hold onto the traffic light’s current
TrafficLightState, and states to hold onto all TrafficLightStates for the traffic light.
You denote both of these properties as private(set) to ensure only the TrafficLight
itself can set them.

Next, replace init(canisterCount:frame:) with this:

public init(canisterCount: Int = 3,

frame: CGRect =
CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 160, height: 420),
states: [TrafficLightState]) {

// 1
guard !states.isEmpty else {
fatalError("states should not be empty")
}
self.currentState = states.first!
self.states = states

// 2
super.init(frame: frame)
backgroundColor =
UIColor(red: 0.86, green: 0.64, blue: 0.25, alpha: 1)
createCanisterLayers(count: canisterCount)
}

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1. You’ve added states to this initializer. Since it doesn’t make logical sense for
states to be empty, you throw a fatalError if it is. Otherwise, you set the
currentState to the first object within states and set self.states to the passed-
in states.

2. Afterwards, you call super.init, set the backgroundColor and call

createCanisterLayers, just as you did before.

Next, add the following code right before the ending class curly brace for TrafficLight:

public func transition(to state: TrafficLightState) {

removeCanisterSublayers()
currentState = state
currentState.apply(to: self)
}

private func removeCanisterSublayers() {

canisterLayers.forEach {
$0.sublayers?.forEach {
$0.removeFromSuperlayer()
}
}
}

You define transition(to state:) to change to a new TrafficLightState. You first call
removeCanisterSublayers to remove existing canister sublayers; this ensures a new
state isn’t added on top of an existing one. You then set currentState and call apply.
This allows the state to add its contents to the TrafficLight instance.

Next, add this line to the end of init(canisterCount:frame:states:):

transition(to: currentState)

This ensures the currentState is added to the view when it’s initialized.

Now to create the concrete states. Add this code to the end of the playground:

// MARK: - Concrete States

public class SolidTrafficLightState {

// MARK: - Properties
public let canisterIndex: Int
public let color: UIColor
public let delay: TimeInterval

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(canisterIndex: Int,
color: UIColor,
delay: TimeInterval) {
self.canisterIndex = canisterIndex
self.color = color
self.delay = delay

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}
}

You declare SolidTrafficLightState to represent a “solid light” state. For example, this
could represent a solid green light. This class has three properties: canisterIndex is the
index of the canisterLayers on TrafficLight to which this state should be added,
color is the color for the state and delay is how long until the next state should be
shown.

You next need to make SolidTrafficLightState conform to TrafficLightState. Add

this code next:

extension SolidTrafficLightState: TrafficLightState {

public func apply(to context: TrafficLight) {

let canisterLayer = context.canisterLayers[canisterIndex]
let circleShape = CAShapeLayer()
circleShape.path = canisterLayer.path!
circleShape.fillColor = color.cgColor
circleShape.strokeColor = color.cgColor
canisterLayer.addSublayer(circleShape)
}
}

Within apply(to:), you create a new CAShapeLayer for the state: you set its path to
match the canisterLayer for its designated canisterIndex, set its fillPath and
strokeColor using its color, and ultimately, add the shape to the canister layer.

Add the following to the end of the playground:

extension SolidTrafficLightState {
public class func greenLight(
color: UIColor =
UIColor(red: 0.21, green: 0.78, blue: 0.35, alpha: 1),
canisterIndex: Int = 2,
delay: TimeInterval = 1.0) -> SolidTrafficLightState {
return SolidTrafficLightState(canisterIndex: canisterIndex,
color: color,
delay: delay)
}

public class func yellowLight(

color: UIColor =
UIColor(red: 0.98, green: 0.91, blue: 0.07, alpha: 1),
canisterIndex: Int = 1,
delay: TimeInterval = 0.5) -> SolidTrafficLightState {
return SolidTrafficLightState(canisterIndex: canisterIndex,
color: color,
delay: delay)
}

public class func redLight(

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color: UIColor =
UIColor(red: 0.88, green: 0, blue: 0.04, alpha: 1),
canisterIndex: Int = 0,
delay: TimeInterval = 2.0) -> SolidTrafficLightState {
return SolidTrafficLightState(canisterIndex: canisterIndex,
color: color,
delay: delay)
}
}

Here, you add convenience class methods to create common SolidTrafficLightStates:

solid green, yellow and red lights.

You’re ready to put this code into action! Add this next:

let greenYellowRed: [SolidTrafficLightState] =

[.greenLight(), .yellowLight(), .redLight()]
let trafficLight = TrafficLight(states: greenYellowRed)
PlaygroundPage.current.liveView = trafficLight

This creates a typical green/yellow/red traffic light and sets it to the current playground
page’s liveView. If your assistant editor isn’t showing already, click View ▸ assistant
editor ▸ Show assistant editor to show it.

But wait! Shouldn’t the traffic light be switching from one state to the next? Oh — you
haven’t actually implemented this functionality yet. The state pattern doesn’t actually
tell you where or how to perform state changes. In this case, you actually have two
choices: you can put state change logic within TrafficLight, or you can put this within
TrafficLightState.

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In a real application, you should evaluate which of these choices is better for your
expected use cases and what’s better in the long run. For this playground example,
“another developer” (i.e., your humble author) has told you the logic is better suited in
the TrafficLight, so this is where you’ll put the changing code.

First, add the following extension after the closing curly brace for TrafficLightState:

extension TrafficLightState {
public func apply(to context: TrafficLight, after delay: TimeInterval)
{
let queue = DispatchQueue.main
let dispatchTime = DispatchTime.now() + delay
queue.asyncAfter(deadline: dispatchTime) { [weak self, weak context]
in
guard let self = self, let context = context else { return }
context.transition(to: self)
}
}
}

This extension adds “apply after” functionality to every type that conforms to
TrafficLightState. In apply(to:after:), you dispatch to DispatchQueue.main after a
passed-in delay, at which point you transition to the current state. In order to break
potential retain cycles, you specify both self and context as weak within the closure.

Next, add the following within TrafficLight, right after removeCanisterSublayers():

public var nextState: TrafficLightState {

guard let index = states.index(where: { $0 === currentState }),
index + 1 < states.count else {
return states.first!
}
return states[index + 1]
}

This creates a convenience computed property for the nextState, which you determine
by finding the index representing the currentState. If there are states after the index,
which you determine by index + 1 < states.count, you return that next state. If there
aren’t states after the currentState, you return the first state to go back to the start.

Add this final line to the end of transition(to state:):

nextState.apply(to: self, after: currentState.delay)

This tells the nextState to apply itself to the traffic light after the current state’s delay
has passed.

Check out the Assistant editor, and you’ll now see it cycling states!

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What should you be careful about?

Be careful about creating tight coupling between the context and concrete states. Will
you ever want to reuse the states in a different context? If so, consider putting a
protocol between the concrete states and context, instead of having concrete states call
methods on a specific context.

If you choose to implement state change logic within the states themselves, be careful
about tight coupling from one state to the next. Will you ever want to transition from
state to another state instead? In this case, consider passing in the next state via an
initializer or property.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Mirror Pad app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\MirrorPad\MirrorPad.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Build and run the app, and draw several lines into the top-left view. Then press
Animate to watch the app animate the mirrored drawings. Before the animation
completes, try drawing more lines into the top-left view. The app lets you do this, but
it’s a poor user experience.

Let’s fix that!

Open DrawView.swift and check out this class. It’s currently doing a lot of work:
accepting user inputs, performing copying, drawing, animation and more. If you
continue to expand Mirror Pad’s functionality over time, you’d likely struggle to
maintain this class. It’s simply doing too much!

You’ll fix both of these using the state pattern, but you already guessed that, right?
You’ll turn DrawView into the context, create a new DrawViewState as the base state
class and create several concrete states that subclass DrawViewState to perform
required behavior.

First, you need to add new groups and files. Create a new group called DrawView inside
the Views group. Then, move DrawView.swift and LineShape.swift into your newly-
created DrawView group.

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Create another new group called States inside the DrawView group. Within the States
group, create new Swift files for each of these:

• AcceptInputState.swift

• AnimateState.swift

• ClearState.swift

• CopyState.swift

• DrawViewState.swift

Your Views group should now look like this in the File hierarchy:

You’ll next implement DrawViewState. Replace the contents of DrawViewState.swift

with the following:

import UIKit

public class DrawViewState {

// MARK: - Class Properties

// 1
public class var identifier: AnyHashable {
return ObjectIdentifier(self)
}

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 2
public unowned let drawView: DrawView

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(drawView: DrawView) {
self.drawView = drawView
}

// MARK: - Actions

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// 3
public func animate() { }
public func copyLines(from source: DrawView) { }
public func clear() { }
public func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?)
{ }
public func touchesMoved(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?)
{ }

// MARK: - State Management

// 4
@discardableResult internal func transitionToState(
matching identifier: AnyHashable) -> DrawViewState {
// TODO: - Implement this
return self
}
}

Here’s what’s going on in the code above:

1. You first declare a class property called identifier. You’ll later use this to switch
between states.

2. You then declare an unowned instance property called drawView, which will be the
context in the state pattern. You pass in the context via the designated initializer
init(drawView:).

This creates a tight coupling between DrawViewState and DrawView. In this app,
you’ll only use DrawViewState along with DrawView, so this coupling isn’t a problem.
In your own app, however, you should consider whether or not you’d ever want to
reuse DrawViewState with a different context.

3. You then declare methods for all of the possible actions and provide empty
implementations for each. Concrete state subclasses will need to override whichever
actions they support. If a concrete state doesn’t override an action, it will inherit
this empty implementation and do nothing.

4. At the end, you declare a method to change between states. This has a return value
of DrawViewState to enable you to call an action on the new state after switching to
it. You need to make changes to DrawView before you can complete this method,
however, so you add a TODO comment and return self as a placeholder for now.

You’ll next stub out each of the concrete states. Essentially, you’ll be moving code from
DrawView into the states to facilitate the refactoring.

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Replace the contents of AcceptInputState.swift with the following:

import UIKit

public class AcceptInputState: DrawViewState {

Replace AnimateState.swift’s contents with this:

import UIKit

public class AnimateState: DrawViewState {

Replace ClearState.swift’s contents with this:

import UIKit

public class ClearState: DrawViewState {

Lastly, replace CopyState.swift’s contents with this:

import UIKit

public class CopyState: DrawViewState {

Great! You can now begin to refactor DrawView. Open DrawView.swift and add the
following properties, right after the existing ones:

public lazy var currentState = states[AcceptInputState.identifier]!

public lazy var states = [

AcceptInputState.identifier: AcceptInputState(drawView: self),
AnimateState.identifier: AnimateState(drawView: self),
ClearState.identifier: ClearState(drawView: self),
CopyState.identifier: CopyState(drawView: self)
]

As its name implies, you’ll use currentState to hold onto the current concrete state.

You’ll hold onto all possible states within states. This is a dictionary that uses the
computed value from identifier defined on DrawViewState for keys and concrete state
instances as values. Why is this a dictionary and not a array? This is because concrete
states don’t have one transition order! Rather, state transitions depend on user
interaction. Here’s how it will work:

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1. The currentState is first set to AcceptInputState as its default value.

2. If the user presses Clear, AcceptInputState will change the context’s currentState
to ClearState; the clear state will perform the “clear” behavior; and afterwards, it
will change the context’s currentState back to AcceptInputState.

3. If the user presses Animate, AcceptInputState will change the context’s

currentState to AnimateState; the animate state will perform animations; and
upon completion, it will change the context’s currentState back to
AcceptInputState.

4. If copy is called, the AcceptInputState will change the context’s currentState to

CopyState; the copy state will perform copying; and afterwards, it will change
currentState back to AcceptInputState.

Remember the method you stubbed out on DrawViewState before? Now that DrawView
has a currentState and states defined, you can complete this method!

Open DrawViewState.swift and replace the contents of

transitionToState(matching:) with the following:

let state = drawView.states[identifier]!

drawView.currentState = state
return state

This looks up the state from drawView.states using the passed-in identifier, sets the
value to drawView.currentState and returns the state.

All that’s left to do is move logic from DrawView into the appropriate concrete states.

You’re going to be editing DrawView a lot, so it will be useful to open this in the
Assistant editor. To do so, hold down Option and left-click on DrawView.swift in the
File hierarchy. This will let you easily edit DrawView at the same time as the concrete
state classes.

Left-click on AcceptInputState.swift in the File hierarchy to open it in the Main

editor. Add the following methods to this class:

// 1
public override func animate() {
let animateState = transitionToState(
matching: AnimateState.identifier)
animateState.animate()
}

public override func clear() {

let clearState = transitionToState(
matching: ClearState.identifier)

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clearState.clear()
}

public override func copyLines(from source: DrawView) {

let copyState = transitionToState(
matching: CopyState.identifier)
copyState.copyLines(from: source)
}

// 2
public override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event:
UIEvent?) {
guard let point = touches.first?.location(in: drawView) else {
return
}
let line = LineShape(color: drawView.lineColor,
width: drawView.lineWidth,
startPoint: point)
drawView.lines.append(line)
drawView.layer.addSublayer(line)
}

public override func touchesMoved(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event:

UIEvent?) {
guard let point = touches.first?.location(in: drawView),
let currentLine = drawView.lines.last else { return }
currentLine.addPoint(point)
}

Here’s the play-by-play:

1. animate(), clear() and copyLines(from:) are very similar. You

transitionToState(matching:) to change to the appropriate state and simply
forward the call onto it.

2. AcceptInputState is responsible for handling touchesBegan(_:with:) and

touchesMoved(_:with:) itself. If you compare this code to the code within DrawView,
you’ll see it’s nearly identical. The only difference is you sometimes have to prefix
calls to drawView. to perform operations on drawView instead of the state.

Replace touchesBegan(_:with:) and touchesMoved(_:with:) within DrawView with the

following:

public override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>,

with event: UIEvent?) {
currentState.touchesBegan(touches, with: event)
}

public override func touchesMoved(_ touches: Set<UITouch>,

with event: UIEvent?) {
currentState.touchesMoved(touches, with: event)
}

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Here you simply forward these method calls onto the currentState. If the currentState
is an instance of AcceptInputState, which it is by default, the app will behave exactly as
before.

Build and run and draw into the top-left view to verify the app still works as expected.

Next, left-click on AnimateState.swift from the File hierarchy to open it in the Main
editor, and add these methods to the class:

public override func animate() {

guard let sublayers = drawView.layer.sublayers, sublayers.count > 0
else {
// 1
transitionToState(
matching: AcceptInputState.identifier)
return
}
sublayers.forEach { $0.removeAllAnimations() }
UIView.beginAnimations(nil, context: nil)
CATransaction.begin()
CATransaction.setCompletionBlock { [weak self] in
// 2
self?.transitionToState(
matching: AcceptInputState.identifier)
}
setSublayersStrokeEnd(to: 0.0)
animateStrokeEnds(of: sublayers, at: 0)
CATransaction.commit()
UIView.commitAnimations()
}

private func setSublayersStrokeEnd(to value: CGFloat) {

drawView.layer.sublayers?.forEach {
guard let shapeLayer = $0 as? CAShapeLayer else { return }
shapeLayer.strokeEnd = 0.0
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "strokeEnd")
animation.fromValue = value
animation.toValue = value
animation.fillMode = .forwards
shapeLayer.add(animation, forKey: nil)
}
}

private func animateStrokeEnds(of layers: [CALayer], at index: Int) {

guard index < layers.count else { return }
let currentLayer = layers[index]
CATransaction.begin()
CATransaction.setCompletionBlock { [weak self] in
currentLayer.removeAllAnimations()
self?.animateStrokeEnds(of: layers, at: index + 1)
}
if let shapeLayer = currentLayer as? CAShapeLayer {
shapeLayer.strokeEnd = 1.0
let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "strokeEnd")
animation.duration = 1.0
animation.fillMode = .forwards

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animation.fromValue = 0.0
animation.toValue = 1.0
shapeLayer.add(animation, forKey: nil)
}
CATransaction.commit()
}

This code is nearly identical to DrawView, but there are two main changes:

1. If there aren’t any sublayers to animate, you immediately transition back to

AcceptInputState without doing anything else.

2. Whenever the entire animation is complete, you likewise transition back to

AcceptInputState.

You should also take note of the methods that you didn’t override, especially
touchesBegan(_:with:) and touchesMoved(_:with:). Consequently, whenever the
currentState is set to AnimateState, you won’t do anything if the user attempts to draw
into the view. Essentially, you fixed a bug by doing nothing. How awesome is that!

Of course, you need to make sure DrawView passes the call to its animate() onto the
currentState instead. Thereby, replace animate() within DrawView with this:

public func animate() {

currentState.animate()
}

Then, delete setSublayersStrokeEnd() and animateStrokeEnds() from DrawView; you

don’t need these anymore since the logic is now handled within AnimateState.

You have just two more states to go! Left-click on ClearState.swift from the File
hierarchy, and add the following method to the class:

public override func clear() {

drawView.lines = []
drawView.layer.sublayers?.removeAll()
transitionToState(matching: AcceptInputState.identifier)
}

This is just like DrawView’s code. The only addition is that once “clearing” is complete,
you transition back to AcceptInputState.

You also need to update DrawView; replace its clear() with this instead:

public func clear() {

currentState.clear()
}

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Open CopyState.swift from the File hierarchy, and add this method within the class:

public override func copyLines(from source: DrawView) {

drawView.layer.sublayers?.removeAll()
drawView.lines = source.lines.deepCopy()
drawView.lines.forEach { drawView.layer.addSublayer($0) }
transitionToState(matching: AcceptInputState.identifier)
}

Again, this is just like DrawView, and the only addition is that you transition back to
AcceptInputState once copying is complete.

Of course, you also need to update copyLines(from:) within DrawView with this:

public func copyLines(from source: DrawView) {

currentState.copyLines(from: source)
}

Build and run, and validate that everything works as it did before.

Take a look at how much shorter DrawView is now! You’ve shifted its responsibilities to
its concrete states instead. And if you ever wanted to add new logic, you’d simply create
a new DrawViewState.

Key points
You learned about the state pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The state pattern permits an object to change its behavior at runtime. It involves
three types: the context, state protocol and concrete states.

• The context is the object that has a current state; the state protocol defines
required methods and properties; and the concrete states implement the state
protocol and actual behavior that changes at runtime.

• The state pattern doesn’t actually tell you where to put transition logic between
states. Rather, this is left for you to decide: you can put this logic either within the
context or within the concrete states.

Mirror Pad is also really coming along! It’s pretty cool that you can see the drawings get
rendered when you press “Animate." However, wouldn’t it be better if you could also see
them added in real time while you draw? You bet it would!

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the multicast delegate design pattern
and add the above real-time feature to Mirror Pad!

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16 Chapter 16: Multicast
Delegate Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The multicast delegate pattern is a behavioral pattern that’s a variation on the delegate
pattern. It allows you to create one-to-many delegate relationships, instead of one-to-
one relationships in a simple delegate. It involves four types:

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1. An object needing a delegate, also known as the delegating object, is the object
that has one or more delegates.

2. The delegate protocol defines the methods a delegate may or should implement.

3. The delegate(s) are objects that implement the delegate protocol.

4. The multicast delegate is a helper class that holds onto delegates and allows you
to notify each delegate whenever a delegate-worthy event happens.

The main difference between the multicast delegate pattern and the delegate pattern is
the presence of a multicast delegate helper class. Swift doesn’t provide you this class by
default. However, you can easily create your own, which you’ll do in this chapter.

When should you use it?

Use this pattern to create one-to-many delegate relationships.

For example, you can use this pattern to inform multiple objects whenever a change has
happened to another object. Each delegate can then update its own state or perform
relevant actions in response.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace from the last chapter, and then open the
MulticastDelegate page from the File hierarchy.

Before you can write the Code example for this page, you need to create the
MulticastDelegate helper class.

Under Sources, open MulticastDelegate.swift and add the following code:

// 1
public class MulticastDelegate<ProtocolType> {

// MARK: - DelegateWrapper
// 2
private class DelegateWrapper {

weak var delegate: AnyObject?

init(_ delegate: AnyObject) {

self.delegate = delegate
}

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}
}

Here’s what’s going on in this code:

1. You define MulticastDelegate as a generic class that accepts any ProtocolType as

the generic type. Swift doesn’t yet provide a way to restrict <ProtocolType> to
protocols only. Consequently, you could pass a concrete class type instead of a
protocol for ProtocolType. Most likely, however, you’ll use a protocol. Hence, you
name the generic type as ProtocolType instead of just Type.

2. You define DelegateWrapper as an inner class. You’ll use this to wrap delegate
objects as a weak property. This way, the multicast delegate can hold onto strong
wrapper instances, instead of the delegates directly.

Unfortunately, here you have to declare the delegate property as AnyObject instead of
ProtocolType. That’s because weak variables have to be AnyObject (i.e., a class). You'd
think you could just declare ProtocolType as AnyObject in the generic definition.
However that won’t work because you’ll need to pass a protocol as the type, which itself
isn't an object.

Next, add the following right before the closing class curly brace for MulticastDelegate:

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 1
private var delegateWrappers: [DelegateWrapper]

// 2
public var delegates: [ProtocolType] {
delegateWrappers = delegateWrappers
.filter { $0.delegate != nil }
return delegateWrappers.map
{ $0.delegate! } as! [ProtocolType]
}

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 3
public init(delegates: [ProtocolType] = []) {
delegateWrappers = delegates.map {
DelegateWrapper($0 as AnyObject)
}
}

Taking each commented section in turn:

1. You declare delegateWrappers to hold onto the DelegateWrapper instances, which

will be created under the hood by MulticastDelegate from delegates passed to it.

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2. You then add a computed property for delegates. This filters out delegates from
delegateWrappers that have already been released and then returns an array of
definitely non-nil delegates.

3. You lastly create an initializer that accepts an array of delegates and maps these to
create delegateWrappers.

You also need a means to add and remove delegates after a MulticastDelegate has
been created already. Add the following instance methods after the previous code to do
this:

// MARK: - Delegate Management

// 1
public func addDelegate(_ delegate: ProtocolType) {
let wrapper = DelegateWrapper(delegate as AnyObject)
delegateWrappers.append(wrapper)
}

// 2
public func removeDelegate(_ delegate: ProtocolType) {
guard let index = delegateWrappers.index(where: {
$0.delegate === (delegate as AnyObject)
}) else {
return
}
delegateWrappers.remove(at: index)
}

Here’s what that code does:

1. As its name implies, you’ll use addDelegate to add a delegate instance, which
creates a DelegateWrapper and appends it to the delegateWrappers.

2. Likewise, you’ll use removeDelegate to remove a delegate. In such, you first attempt
to find the index for the DelegateWrapper that matches the delegate using pointer
equality, === instead of ==. If found, you remove the delegate wrapper at the given
index.

Lastly, you need a means to actually invoke all of the delegates. Add the following
method after the previous ones:

public func invokeDelegates(_ closure: (ProtocolType) -> ()) {

delegates.forEach { closure($0) }
}

You iterate through delegates, the computed property you defined before that
automatically filters out nil instances, and call the passed-in closure on each delegate
instance.

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Fantastic — you now have a very useful MulticastDelegate helper class and are ready to
try it out!

Open the MulticastDelegate page from the File hierarchy, and enter the following
after Code example:

// MARK: - Delegate Protocol

public protocol EmergencyResponding {
func notifyFire(at location: String)
func notifyCarCrash(at location: String)
}

You define EmergencyResponding, which will act as the delegate protocol.

Add the following next:

// MARK: - Delegates
public class FireStation: EmergencyResponding {

public func notifyFire(at location: String) {

print("Firefighters were notified about a fire at "
+ location)
}

public func notifyCarCrash(at location: String) {

print("Firefighters were notified about a car crash at "
+ location)
}
}

public class PoliceStation: EmergencyResponding {

public func notifyFire(at location: String) {

print("Police were notified about a fire at "
+ location)
}

public func notifyCarCrash(at location: String) {

print("Police were notified about a car crash at "
+ location)
}
}

You define two delegate objects: FireStation and PoliceStation. Whenever an

emergency happens, both the police and fire fighters will respond. For simplicity, you
simply print out messages whenever a method is called on these. Add this code next:

// MARK: - Delegating Object

public class DispatchSystem {
let multicastDelegate =
MulticastDelegate<EmergencyResponding>()
}

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You declare DispatchSystem, which has a multicastDelegate property. This is the

delegating object. You can imagine this is part of a larger dispatch system, where you
notify all emergency responders whenever a fire, crash, or other emergency event
happens.

Add this next:

// MARK: - Example
let dispatch = DispatchSystem()
var policeStation: PoliceStation! = PoliceStation()
var fireStation: FireStation! = FireStation()

dispatch.multicastDelegate.addDelegate(policeStation)
dispatch.multicastDelegate.addDelegate(fireStation)

You create dispatch as an instance of DispatchSystem. You then create delegate

instances for policeStation and fireStation and register both by calling
dispatch.multicastDelegate.addDelegate(_:).

Add this next:

dispatch.multicastDelegate.invokeDelegates {
$0.notifyFire(at: "Ray’s house!")
}

This calls notifyFire(at:) on each of the delegate instances on multicastDelegate.

You should see the following printed to the console:

Police were notified about a fire at Ray's house!

Firefighters were notified about a fire at Ray's house!

Oh noes, there’s a fire at Ray’s house! I hope he’s okay.

In the event that a delegate becomes nil, it should not be notified of any future calls on
multicast delegate. Add the following next to verify that this works as intended:

print("")
fireStation = nil

dispatch.multicastDelegate.invokeDelegates {
$0.notifyCarCrash(at: "Ray's garage!")
}

You set fireStation to nil, which in turn will result in its related DelegateWrapper on
MulticastDelegate having its delegate set to nil as well. When you then call
invokeDelegates, this will result in said DelegateWrapper being filtered out, so its
delegate’s code will not be invoked.

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You should see this printed to the console:

Police were notified about a car crash at Ray's garage!

Ray must have skidded off the driveway when he was trying to get out of the fire! Get
out of there, Ray!

What should you be careful about?

This pattern works best for “information only” delegate calls.

If delegates need to provide data, this pattern doesn’t work well. That’s because
multiple delegates would be asked to provide the data, which could result in duplicated
information or wasted processing.

In this case, consider using the chain-of-responsibility pattern instead, as covered in

Chapter 22.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Mirror Pad app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open starter/
MirrorPad/MirrorPad.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Build and run the app. Draw several lines into the top-left view and press Animate to
see the lines drawn to each view. This is pretty neat, but wouldn’t it be cool if the lines
were added as you drew? You bet it would! This is exactly what you’ll be adding in this
chapter.

To do so, you’re going to need the MulticastDelegate.Swift file you created in the
Playground example. If you skipped the Playground example, open Finder, navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter, and open final/
IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace. Otherwise, feel free to use your own file
from the playground.

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Back in MirrorPad.xcodeproj, create a new file named MulticastDelegate.swift in the

Protocols group. Then, copy and paste the entire contents from
MulticastDelegate.swift from the IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace, and
paste this into your newly created file.

Next, open DrawView.swift from the File hierarchy and add the following at the top
of the file, after the imports:

@objc public protocol DrawViewDelegate: class {

func drawView(_ source: DrawView, didAddLine line: LineShape)
func drawView(_ source: DrawView, didAddPoint point: CGPoint)
}

DrawViewDelegate will be the delegate protocol. You’ll notify all delegate instances
whenever a new line or point is added.

Next, add the following right before the closing class curly brace for DrawView:

// MARK: - Delegate Management

public let multicastDelegate =
MulticastDelegate<DrawViewDelegate>()

public func addDelegate(_ delegate: DrawViewDelegate) {

multicastDelegate.addDelegate(delegate)
}

public func removeDelegate(_ delegate: DrawViewDelegate) {

multicastDelegate.removeDelegate(delegate)
}

You create a new instance of MulticastDelegate<DrawViewDelegate> called

multicastDelegate and two convenience methods to add and remove delegates,
addDelegate(_:) and removeDelegate(_:).

Open AcceptInputState.swift from the File hierarchy. This class is used by DrawView,
and it’s responsible for creating lines and points in response to user touches. You’ll
update it to notify the draw view’s delegates as well.

Replace touchesBegan(_:event:) with the following:

public override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>,

with event: UIEvent?) {
guard let point = touches.first?.location(in: drawView)
else { return }
let line = LineShape(color: drawView.lineColor,
width: drawView.lineWidth,
startPoint: point)
// 1
addLine(line)

// 2

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drawView.multicastDelegate.invokeDelegates {
$0.drawView(drawView, didAddLine: line)
}
}

private func addLine(_ line: LineShape) {

drawView.lines.append(line)
drawView.layer.addSublayer(line)
}

You made two significant changes from the previous implementation:

1. Instead of appending the new line and adding it to the drawView.layer directly
within touchesBegan(_:event:), you pull this logic into a new helper method,
addLine(_:). This will allow you to call addLine(_:) separately from
touchesBegan(_:event:) later on.

2. You call drawView.multicastDelegate.invokeDelegates to notify all that a new line

has been created.

Next, replace touchesMoved(_:event:) with the following:

public override func touchesMoved(_ touches: Set<UITouch>,

with event: UIEvent?) {
guard let point = touches.first?.location(in: drawView)
else { return }

// 1
addPoint(point)

// 2
drawView.multicastDelegate.invokeDelegates {
$0.drawView(drawView, didAddPoint: point)
}
}

private func addPoint(_ point: CGPoint) {

drawView.lines.last?.addPoint(point)
}

You also made two similar changes here:

1. Instead of adding the point directly within touchesMoved(_:event:), you now call
addPoint(_ point:). Again, this is to enable you to call it separately later on.

2. You notify all delegates whenever a new point has been created.

Great, this takes care of the delegate notifications! You next need to actually conform to
the new DrawViewDelegate protocol somewhere.
Before you can do so, it’s important you understand how MirrorPad actually uses
DrawView. It has multiple DrawView instances that displays “mirrors” of the input

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DrawView. The difference between each mirror DrawView instance is their

layer.sublayerTransform, which determines their mirror transformations.

In order to update the mirror DrawView objects whenever the master DrawView object is
updated, you’ll need to make DrawView itself conform to DrawViewDelegate. However,
DrawView should only accept new lines and points when its currentState is set to
AcceptInputState. This prevents potential issues resulting from things such as adding
lines or points while the animation is running.

Consequently, you also need to make DrawViewState, the base state used by DrawView,
conform to DrawViewDelegate. This lets AcceptInputState override the delegate
methods and handle the new lines and points correctly.

Note: DrawView uses the state pattern to accept input and animate, among other
things. The state pattern is covered in the previous chapter.

All this theory here may sound a bit complex, but essentially DrawView will forward calls
to add new lines or points to its currentState. If the currentState is AcceptInputState,
the new lines and points will be added. If not, the calls will be ignored.

Okay, that’s enough theory!

Open DrawViewState.swift and add the following to the end of the file:

// MARK: - DrawViewDelegate
extension DrawViewState: DrawViewDelegate {
public func drawView(_ source: DrawView,
didAddLine line: LineShape) { }

public func drawView(_ source: DrawView,

didAddPoint point: CGPoint) { }
}

You made DrawViewState conform to DrawViewDelegate and provide empty

implementations for both required methods. As a result, if the DrawViewState isn’t
currently AcceptInputState, then these calls won’t do anything.

Next, open AcceptInputState.swift and add the following to the end of the file:

// MARK: - DrawViewDelegate
extension AcceptInputState {

public override func drawView(_ source: DrawView,

didAddLine line: LineShape) {
let newLine = line.copy() as LineShape
addLine(newLine)
}

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public override func drawView(_ source: DrawView,

didAddPoint point: CGPoint) {
addPoint(point)
}
}

Within drawView(_:didAddLine:), you create a newLine by copying the passed-in line

and then call addLine to add it. You’re required to copy the line in order to have it
displayed on both the original DrawView and this DrawView itself.

Within drawView(_:didAddPoint:), you simply call addPoint(_:) to add the point. Since
CGPoint is a struct, which uses value semantics, it’s copied automatically.

You next need to make DrawView itself conform to DrawViewDelegate. Open

DrawView.swift and add this to the end of the file:

// MARK: - DrawViewDelegate
extension DrawView: DrawViewDelegate {

public func drawView(_ source: DrawView,

didAddLine line: LineShape) {
currentState.drawView(source, didAddLine: line)
}

public func drawView(_ source: DrawView,

didAddPoint point: CGPoint) {
currentState.drawView(source, didAddPoint: point)
}
}

You simply pass the call through to the currentState.

You’re almost ready to try this out! The last thing you need to do is actually register the
“mirror” DrawViews as delegates of the input DrawView. Open ViewController.swift and
add the following after the existing properties:

// MARK: - View Lifecycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
mirrorDrawViews.forEach {
inputDrawView.addDelegate($0)
}
}

You simply iterate through each mirrorDrawView and add them as delegates to
inputDrawView.

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Build and run, and try drawing into the top-left draw view. Each of the other views
should now be updated in real time as you draw!

Key points
You learned about the multicast delegate pattern in this chapter. Here are its key
points:

• The multicast delegate pattern allows you to create one-to-many delegate

relationships. It involves four types: an object needing a delegate, a delegate
protocol, delegates, and a multicast delegate.

• An object needing a delegate has one or more delegates; the delegate protocol
defines the methods a delegate should implement; the delegates implement the
delegate protocol; and the multicast delegate is a helper class for holding onto and
notifying the delegates.

• Swift doesn’t provide a multicast delegate object for you. However, it’s easy to
implement your own to support this pattern.

Mirror Pad is really functional now! However, there’s no way to share your amazing
creations with the world... yet!

Continue onto the next chapter to learn about the facade design pattern and add
sharing functionality.

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17 Chapter 17: Facade Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The facade pattern is a structural pattern that provides a simple interface to a complex
system. It involves two types:

1. The facade provides simple methods to interact with the system. This allows
consumers to use the facade instead of knowing about and interacting with multiple
classes in the system.

2. The dependencies are objects owned by the facade. Each dependency performs a
small part of a complex task.

When should you use it?

Use this pattern whenever you have a system made up of multiple components and
want to provide a simple way for users to perform complex tasks.

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For example, a product ordering system involves several components: customers and
products, inventory in stock, shipping orders and others.

Instead of requiring the consumer to understand each of these components and how
they interact, you can provide a facade to expose common tasks such as placing and
fulfilling a new order.

Playground example
Open IntermediateDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then
open the Facade page.

You’ll implement part of the ordering system mentioned above. Specifically, you’ll
create an OrderFacade that allows a user to place an order.

Enter the following after Code example:

import Foundation

// MARK: - Dependencies
public struct Customer {
public let identifier: String
public var address: String
public var name: String
}

extension Customer: Hashable {

public var hashValue: Int {

return identifier.hashValue
}

public static func ==(lhs: Customer,

rhs: Customer) -> Bool {
return lhs.identifier == rhs.identifier
}
}

public struct Product {

public let identifier: String
public var name: String
public var cost: Double
}

extension Product: Hashable {

public var hashValue: Int {

return identifier.hashValue
}

public static func ==(lhs: Product,

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rhs: Product) -> Bool {

return lhs.identifier == rhs.identifier
}
}

Here you define two simple models: a Customer represents a user that can place an
order, and a Product is what’s sold by the system. You make both of these types conform
to Hashable to enable you to use them as keys within a dictionary.

Next, add the following to the end of the playground:

public class InventoryDatabase {

public var inventory: [Product: Int] = [:]

public init(inventory: [Product: Int]) {

self.inventory = inventory
}
}

public class ShippingDatabase {

public var pendingShipments: [Customer: [Product]] = [:]
}

First, you declare InventoryDatabase. This is a simplified version of a database that

stores available inventory, which represents the number of items available for a given
Product.

You also declare ShippingDatabase. This is likewise a simplified version of a database

that holds onto pendingShipments, which represents products that have been ordered
but not yet shipped for a given Customer. In a complex system, you’d also likely define a
CustomerDatabase, BillingDatabase and more. To keep this example simple, however,
you’ll omit these elements.

Next, add the following code:

// MARK: - Facade
public class OrderFacade {
public let inventoryDatabase: InventoryDatabase
public let shippingDatabase: ShippingDatabase

public init(inventoryDatabase: InventoryDatabase,

shippingDatabase: ShippingDatabase) {
self.inventoryDatabase = inventoryDatabase
self.shippingDatabase = shippingDatabase
}
}

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Here, you declare OrderFacade and add two properties, inventoryDatabase and
shippingDatabase, which you pass into this via its initializer,
init(inventoryDatabase:shippingDatabase:).

Next, add the following method to the end of the OrderFacade class you just added:

public func placeOrder(for product: Product,

by customer: Customer) {
// 1
print("Place order for '\(product.name)' by '\(customer.name)'")

// 2
let count = inventoryDatabase.inventory[product, default: 0]
guard count > 0 else {
print("'\(product.name)' is out of stock!")
return
}

// 3
inventoryDatabase.inventory[product] = count - 1

// 4
var shipments =
shippingDatabase.pendingShipments[customer, default: []]
shipments.append(product)
shippingDatabase.pendingShipments[customer] = shipments

// 5
print("Order placed for '\(product.name)' " +
"by '\(customer.name)'")
}

This is a simple method that consumers of the facade will call to place orders for a
given Product and Customer.

Here’s what the code does:

1. You first print the product.name and customer.name to the console.

2. Before fulfilling the order, you guard that there’s at least one of the given product in
the inventoryDatabase.inventory. If there isn’t any, you print that the product is
out of stock.

3. Since there’s at least one of the product available, you can fulfill the order. You
thereby reduce the count of the product in inventoryDatabase.inventory by one.

4. You then add the product to the shippingDatabase.pendingShipments for the given
customer.

5. Finally, you print that the order was successfully placed.

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Great, you’re ready to try out the facade! Add the following code at the end of the
playground:

// MARK: - Example
// 1
let rayDoodle = Product(
identifier: "product-001",
name: "Ray's doodle",
cost: 0.25)

let vickiPoodle = Product(

identifier: "product-002",
name: "Vicki's prized poodle",
cost: 1000)

// 2
let inventoryDatabase = InventoryDatabase(
inventory: [rayDoodle: 50, vickiPoodle : 1]
)

// 3
let orderFacade = OrderFacade(
inventoryDatabase: inventoryDatabase,
shippingDatabase: ShippingDatabase())

// 4
let customer = Customer(
identifier: "customer-001",
address: "1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20006",
name: "Johnny Appleseed")

orderFacade.placeOrder(for: vickiPoodle, by: customer)

Here’s what this does:

1. First, you set up two products. rayDoodle are drawings from Ray, and vickiPoodle is
a prized pet poodle by Vicki. Don’t even get me started about the poodle doodles!

2. Next, you create inventoryDatabase using the products. There are a lot of
rayDoodles (he likes to doodle, apparently) and only one vickiPoodle. It’s her
prized poodle, after all!

3. Then, you create the orderFacade using the inventoryDatabase and a new
ShippingDatabase.

4. Finally, you create a customer and call orderFacade.placeOrder(for:by:).

Naturally, of course, your order is for Vicki’s prized poodle. It’s expensive, but it’s
worth it!

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You should see the following printed to the console:

Place order for 'Vicki's prized poodle' by 'Johnny Appleseed'

Order placed for 'Vicki's prized poodle' by 'Johnny Appleseed'

Doodles and poodles aside, you’ve just created a nice start for an ordering system!

What should you be careful about?

Be careful about creating a “god” facade that knows about every class in your app.

It’s okay to create more than one facade for different use cases. For example, if you
notice a facade has functionality that some classes use and other functionality that
other classes use, consider splitting it into two or more facades.

Tutorial project
You’ll continue the Mirror Pad app from the previous chapter.

If you skipped the previous chapter, or you want a fresh start, open Finder and navigate
to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter. Then, open
starter\MirrorPad\MirrorPad.xcodeproj in Xcode.

You’ll implement a share button in this chapter and make use of a facade. To keep the
focus on the design pattern, and to save you a lot of typing, the facade’s dependencies
have been provided for you.

Open Finder and navigate to wherever you downloaded the resources for this chapter.
Alongside the Starter and Final directories, you’ll see a Resources directory that
contains DrawingSelectionViewController.swift,
DrawingSelectionViewController.xib and ImageRenderer.swift.

Position the Finder window above Xcode and drag and drop
DrawingSelectionViewController.swift and ImageRenderer.swift into the app’s
Facades group.

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When prompted, check the option for Copy items if needed and press Finish to add
the files.

Finally, drag and drop DrawingSelectionViewController.xib into the Views group.

Again, select Copy items if needed and press Finish to add the file.

You’ll use DrawingSelectionViewController to display an OutlineView over the existing

ViewController. It has a button to toggle the selected drawing between the
inputDrawView and entireDrawView and a “Share” button to share the selection.

You’ll pass the selected view to ImageRenderer to convert it into a UIImage. You’ll then
use the resulting image to create a UIActivityViewController.

UIActivityViewController is actually an Apple-provided facade! It provides a simple

interface to share strings, images and other media with iCloud, iMessage, Twitter and
other apps that are available on the device.

Your job is to create a new facade called ShareFacade. You’ll use this to provide a simple
interface to allow consumers to select which view to share, turn the view into an image
and share this via whichever app the user chooses.

Thereby, ShareFacade will coordinate between DrawingSelectionViewController,

ImageRenderer and UIActivityViewController to accomplish this goal.

You’ve got the mission brief down, so it’s time to code!

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Create a new Swift File called ShareFacade.swift within the app’s Facades group and
replace its contents with the following:

import UIKit

public class ShareFacade {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 1
public unowned var entireDrawing: UIView
public unowned var inputDrawing: UIView
public unowned var parentViewController: UIViewController

// 2
private var imageRenderer = ImageRenderer()

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 3
public init(entireDrawing: UIView,
inputDrawing: UIView,
parentViewController: UIViewController) {
self.entireDrawing = entireDrawing
self.inputDrawing = inputDrawing
self.parentViewController = parentViewController
}

// MARK: - Facade Methods

// 4
public func presentShareController() {

}
}

Let’s take a look at what is going on here:

1. First you declare instance variables for entireDrawing, inputDrawing and

parentViewController. In order to prevent a strong reference cycle, you denote each
property as unowned.

2. Next, you declare a property for imageRenderer, which you’ll use later.

3. Then, you create an initializer to set each of the unowned properties.

4. Finally, you stub out a method for presentShareController, which ultimately

consumers will call to present the share controller to select which view to share,
convert the view to an image and share it.

Before you can implement presentShareController(), you’ll need to make ShareFacade

conform to DrawingSelectionViewControllerDelegate, which is required by
DrawingSelectionViewController.

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Still in ShareFacade.swift, add the following to the bottom of the file after the closing
class curly brace:

// MARK: - DrawingSelectionViewControllerDelegate
extension ShareFacade: DrawingSelectionViewControllerDelegate {

// 1
public func drawingSelectionViewControllerDidCancel(
_ viewController: DrawingSelectionViewController) {
parentViewController.dismiss(animated: true)
}

// 2
public func drawingSelectionViewController(
_ viewController: DrawingSelectionViewController,
didSelectView view: UIView) {

parentViewController.dismiss(animated: false)
let image = imageRenderer.convertViewToImage(view)

let activityViewController = UIActivityViewController(

activityItems: [image],
applicationActivities: nil)
parentViewController.present(activityViewController,
animated: true)
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. drawingSelectionViewControllerDidCancel is called whenever the user presses the

Cancel button to abort sharing. In this case, you tell parentViewController to
dismiss its currently displayed view controller with an animation.

2. drawingSelectionViewController(_:didSelectView:) is called whenever the user

presses the Share button to select a view to share. In this case, you first tell
parentViewController to dismiss its current view controller without an animation.

Next, you immediately create an image from the given view by passing this to
imageRenderer.

In turn, you use this view to create a UIActivityViewController, which

parentViewController presents using an animation.

Ultimately, this will have the nice effect of immediately hiding the
DrawingSelectionViewController and animating in the new
UIActivityViewController.

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Next, add the following code inside presentShareController():

// 1
let selectionViewController =
DrawingSelectionViewController.createInstance(
entireDrawing: entireDrawing,
inputDrawing: inputDrawing,
delegate: self)

// 2
parentViewController.present(selectionViewController,
animated: true)

This code is fairly straightforward:

1. You first create a new DrawingSelectionViewController instance called

selectionViewController using a convenience class constructor method,
createInstance(entireDrawing:inputDrawing:delegate).

If you inspect this method within DrawingSelectionViewController.swift, you’ll

see it creates a new view controller instance by calling
DrawingSelectionViewController(nibName: nil, bundle: nil), sets the
modalPresentationStyle and modalTransitionStyle, sets the passed-in variables as
properties on the new instance, and returns the view controller.

2. Finally, you tell parentViewController to present the selectionViewController

with an animation.

Your ShareFacade is all set up and ready to be used!

Open ViewController.swift and add the following right after the opening class curly
brace:

// MARK: - Properties
public lazy var shareFacade: ShareFacade =
ShareFacade(entireDrawing: drawViewContainer,
inputDrawing: inputDrawView,
parentViewController: self)

Here, you create a new property called shareFacade. Since you pass self as the
parentViewController, you make this a lazy property to ensure that the
ViewController itself is fully created first.

Lastly, add the following inside sharePressed(_:):

shareFacade.presentShareController()

With this single line, you’ve added sharing capabilities to ViewController. Aren’t
facades great?

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Build and run the app. Draw several lines in the top-left view, press the Share button,
and you’ll be presented with the DrawingSelectionViewController.

Press the red Share button, and you’ll see the UIActivityViewController, where you
can pick an app to use to share the image.

If you’re using the simulator, you’ll only see a few apps available. If you use a real
device instead, you’ll see several more depending on the apps you have installed.

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Key points
You learned about the facade pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The facade pattern provides a simple interface to a complex system. It involves two
types: the facade and its dependencies.

• The facade provides simple methods to interact with the system. Behind the scenes,
it owns and interacts with its dependencies, each of which performs a small part of a
complex task.

Where to go from here?

Congratulations on making it to the end of the Intermediate section! If you’ve worked
through all of the chapters so far, you now know the majority of the design patterns
used in iOS.

Mirror Pad has come a long way, and the code is much more maintainable! There’s still
a lot of functionality you can add:

• Color and brush stroke selection

• Undo and redo functionality

• Saving and loading drawings in the app

Each of these are possible using the existing patterns you’ve learned in the
Intermediate and Fundamental Design Patterns sections. Feel free to continue building
out Mirror Pad as much as you like.

But you still have more learning to do. Continue onto the next section to learn about
advanced design patterns, including mediator, composite, command and more!

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Section IV: Advanced Design
Patterns

This section covers design patterns that are very useful but only in rare or specific
circumstances. These patterns may be exactly what you need for a particular case, but
they may not be useful on every project. However, it’s best to be aware of them as you’ll
undoubtedly run across them at some point in your development career.

Chapter 18: Flyweight Pattern

Chapter 19: Mediator Pattern
Chapter 20: Composite Pattern
Chapter 21: Command Pattern
Chapter 22: Chain of Responsibility
Chapter 23: Coordinator Pattern

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18 Chapter 18: Flyweight
Pattern
By Jay Strawn

The flyweight pattern is a structural design pattern that minimizes memory usage and
processing.

This pattern provides objects that all share the same underlying data, thus saving
memory. They are usually immutable to make sharing the same underlying data trivial.

The flyweight pattern has objects, called flyweights, and a static method to return
them.

Does this sound familiar? It should! The flyweight pattern is a variation on the
singleton pattern. In the flyweight pattern, you usually have multiple different objects
of the same class. An example is the use of colors, as you will experience shortly. You
need a red color, a green color and so on. Each of these colors are a single instance that
share the same underlying data.

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When should you use it?

Use a flyweight in places where you would use a singleton, but you need multiple
shared instances with different configurations. If you have an object that’s resource
intensive to create and you can’t minimize the cost of creation process, the best thing
to do is create the object just once and pass it around instead.

Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the starter directory and then click
on the Flyweight link to open the page.

Here, you’ll use UIKit. Flyweights are very common in UIKit. UIColor, UIFont, and
UITableViewCell are all examples of classes with flyweights.

Add the following right after Code Example:

import UIKit

let red = UIColor.red

let red2 = UIColor.red
print(red === red2)

This code proves that UIColor uses flyweights. Comparing the colors with ===
statements shows that each variable has the same memory address, which means .red
is a flyweight and is only instantiated once.

Of course, not all UIColor objects are flyweights. Add the following below:

let color = UIColor(red: 1, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 1)

let color2 = UIColor(red: 1, green: 0, blue: 0, alpha: 1)
print(color === color2)

This time, your console will log false! Custom UIColor objects aren’t flyweights. This
method takes red, green and blue and returns a new UIColor every time it’s called.

If UIColor checked the values to see if a color was already made, it could return
flyweight instances instead. Why don’t you do that? Extend the UIColor class with the
following code:

extension UIColor {

// 1
public static var colorStore: [String: UIColor] = [:]

// 2

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public class func rgba(_ red: CGFloat,

_ green: CGFloat,
_ blue: CGFloat,
_ alpha: CGFloat) -> UIColor {

let key = "\(red)\(green)\(blue)\(alpha)"

if let color = colorStore[key] {
return color
}

// 3
let color = UIColor(red: red,
green: green,
blue: blue,
alpha: alpha)
colorStore[key] = color
return color
}
}

Here’s what you did:

1. You created a dictionary called colorStore to store RGBA values.

2. You wrote your own method that takes red green, blue and alpha like the UIColor
method. You store the RGB values in a string called key. If a color with that key
already exists in colorStore, use that one instead of creating a new one.

3. If the key does not already exist in the colorStore, create the UIColor and store it
along with its key.

Lastly, add the following code to the end of the playground:

let flyColor = UIColor.rgba(1, 0, 0, 1)

let flyColor2 = UIColor.rgba(1, 0, 0, 1)
print(flyColor === flyColor2)

This tests the extension method. You’ll see that the console prints true, which means
you’ve successfully implemented the flyweight pattern!

What should you be careful about?

In creating flyweights, be careful about how big your flyweight memory grows. If you’re
storing several flyweights, as in colorStore above, you minimize memory usage for the
same color, but you can still use too much memory in the flyweight store.

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To mitigate this, set bounds on how much memory you use or register for memory
warnings and respond by removing some flyweights from memory. You could use a LRU
(Least Recently Used) cache to handle this.

Also be mindful that your flyweight shared instance must be a class and not a struct.
Structs use copy semantics, so you don’t get the benefits of shared underlying data that
comes with reference types.

Tutorial project
Throughout this section, you’ll create a tutorial app called YetiJokes.

It’s a joke-reading app that uses custom fonts and snowcases some great puns. ;] For the
purposes of this tutorial, most of the setup has been done already.

Open starter\YetiJokes\YetiJokes.xcodeproj in this chapter’s directory for the

flyweight pattern.

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Build and run. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see a toolbar with the following
options:

The goal of this project is to use the buttons on the segmented control to change the
font to large, medium and small sizes. These fonts will be dynamically loaded as... you
guessed it, flyweights!

Return to Finder and you’ll see that there are two folders in the Starter directory:
YetiJokes and YetiTheme. YetiTheme is a framework with a custom font inside.

Open Starter\YetiJokes\YetiTheme\YetiTheme.xcodeproj and select Fonts.swift in

the left menu of the app.

Replace the contents of the file with the following:

import Foundation

public final class Fonts {

// 1
public static let large = loadFont(name: fontName,
size: 30.0)
public static let medium = loadFont(name: fontName,
size: 25.0)
public static let small = loadFont(name: fontName,
size: 18.0)

// 2
private static let fontName = "coolstory-regular"

// 3
private static func loadFont(name: String,
size: CGFloat) -> UIFont {

if let font = UIFont(name: name, size: size) {

return font

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let bundle = Bundle(for: Fonts.self)

// 4
guard
let url = bundle.url(forResource: name,
withExtension: "ttf"),
let fontData = NSData(contentsOf: url),
let provider = CGDataProvider(data: fontData),
let cgFont = CGFont(provider),
let fontName = cgFont.postScriptName as String? else {
preconditionFailure("Unable to load font named \(name)")
}

CTFontManagerRegisterGraphicsFont(cgFont, nil)

// 5
return UIFont(name: fontName, size: size)!
}
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You create three flyweights, each one a font with a different size.

2. You create a private constant for the font file name to use.

3. You create the method that loads a font of the given name at a certain size.

4. In this guard statement, you load the font as a CGFont, then register it to the app
with CTFontManagerRegisterGraphicsFont. If the font has already been registered, it
will not be registered again.

5. Now that it’s registered, you can load your custom font as a UIFont by name.

“Why load a font this way?” you may be thinking. “Why not just include the font in the
main bundle?”

Yes, there’s an easier way of doing this in the app’s main bundle. However, if YetiTheme
is a shared library between several apps, you may not want each app to add this font to
the main bundle. In a real-world example, you may have many fonts and don’t want
consuming apps to have the hassle of adding them whenever new ones are added or
existing fonts changes.

If your framework provides trademarked fonts, you could even be required to encrypt
the font data. You aren’t doing this here, but if you needed to, you could more easily do
so since the font is in a separate bundle.

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Now that you can load fonts, close YetiTheme and go back to YetiJokes.xcodeproj. It’s
time to actually add this framework to the app.

Right-click on the top of the navigation tree and select Add files to "YetiJokes"... and
add YetiTheme.xcodeproj:

Once you’ve added YetiTheme.xcodeproj, your project structure will look similar to
the following:

Next, click on YetiJokes and select General. Scroll to the bottom and add
YetiTheme.framework to Embedded Binaries. (Choose YetiTheme.frameworkiOS
underneath YetiTheme.xcodeproj ▸ Products). Xcode should automatically add
YetiTheme.framework to Linked Frameworks and Libraries as well.

OK cool, can you use YetiTheme yet? Not yet-i! You need to import the framework first.

Open ViewController.swift and import the Framework at the top of the file:

import YetiTheme

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Next, you’ll want to use the new font when the View controller loads. Add the following
below your IBOutlet definitions:

// MARK: - View Life Cycle

public override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()

textLabel.font = Fonts.small
}

This code will set the textLabel font to the small custom font on the views initial load.
Finally, time to set up the segmented control. Add the following to the existing
segmentedControlValueChanged(_:).

switch sender.selectedSegmentIndex {
case 0:
textLabel.font = Fonts.small
case 1:
textLabel.font = Fonts.medium
case 2:
textLabel.font = Fonts.large
default:
textLabel.font = Fonts.small
}

Build and run the app. You can now switch between fonts quickly and easily! Each font
is only loaded once, and the font won’t be registered more than once. You’ve
successfully cut back on processing and load times in your app. Build and run the app to
verify this functionality.

Key points
You learned about the flyweight pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The flyweight pattern minimizes memory usage and processing.

• This pattern has objects, called flyweights, and a static method to return them. It’s a
variation on the singleton pattern.

• When creating flyweights, be careful about the size of your flyweight memory. If
you’re storing several flyweights, it’s still possible to use too much memory in the
flyweight store.

• Examples of flyweights include caching objects such as images, or keeping a pool of

objects stored in memory for quick access.
<<<<<<< HEADFeel free to add functionality to YetiJokes and even change up the jokes!

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=======Feel free to add functionality to YetiJokes and even change up the jokes; you
can only get so many laughs with dad puns!

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19 Chapter 19: Mediator
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The mediator pattern is a behavioral design pattern that encapsulates how objects
communicate with one another. It involves four types:

1. The colleagues are the objects that want to communicate with each other. They
implement the colleague protocol.

2. The colleague protocol defines methods and properties that each colleague must
implement.

3. The mediator is the object that controls the communication of the colleagues. It
implements the mediator protocol.

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4. The mediator protocol defines methods and properties that the mediator must
implement.

Each colleague contains a reference to the mediator, via the mediator protocol. In lieu
of interacting with other colleagues directly, each colleague communicates through the
mediator.

The mediator facilitates colleague-to-colleague interaction: Colleagues may both send

and receive messages from the mediator.

When should you use it?

This mediator pattern is useful to separate interactions between colleagues into an
object, the mediator.

This pattern is especially useful when you need one or more colleagues to act upon
events initiated by another colleague, and, in turn, have this colleague generate further
events that affect other colleagues.

Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPattern.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, or continue
from your own playground workspace you’ve been continuing to work on throughout
the book, and then open the Mediator page from the File hierarchy.

Before you can write the Code example for this page, you need to create a base
Mediator class.

Note: You can technically implement the mediator pattern without using a base
Mediator but, if you do, you’ll likely write a lot more boilerplate code.

If you worked through Chapter 16, “MulticastDelegate Pattern,” you may notice
that the Mediator class is similar to the MulticastDelegate class, but it has a few
key differences that make it unique.

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Under Sources, open Mediator.swift and add the following code:

// 1
open class Mediator<ColleagueType> {

// 2
private class ColleagueWrapper {
var strongColleague: AnyObject?
weak var weakColleague: AnyObject?

// 3
var colleague: ColleagueType? {
return (weakColleague ?? strongColleague) as? ColleagueType
}

// 4
init(weakColleague: ColleagueType) {
self.strongColleague = nil
self.weakColleague = weakColleague as AnyObject
}

init(strongColleague: ColleagueType) {
self.strongColleague = strongColleague as AnyObject
self.weakColleague = nil
}
}
}

Here’s what’s going on in this code:

1. You define Mediator as a generic class that accepts any ColleagueType as the
generic type. You also declare Mediator as open to enable classes in other modules
to subclass it.

2. You define ColleagueWrapper as an inner class, and you declare two stored
properties on it: strongColleague and weakColleague. In some use cases, you’ll
want Mediator to retain colleagues, but in others, you won’t want this. Hence, you
declare both weak and strong properties to support both scenarios.

Unfortunately, Swift doesn’t provide a way to limit generic type parameters to class
protocols only. Consequently, you declare strongColleague and weakColleague to be
of type AnyObject? instead of ColleagueType?.

3. You then declare colleague as a computed property. This is a convenience property

that first attempts to unwrap weakColleague and, if that’s nil, then it attempts to
unwrap strongColleague.

4. You lastly declare two designated initializers, init(weakColleague:) and

init(strongColleague:), for setting either weakColleague or strongColleague.

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Next, add the following code after the closing curly brace for ColleagueWrapper:

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 1
private var colleagueWrappers: [ColleagueWrapper] = []

// 2
public var colleagues: [ColleagueType] {
var colleagues: [ColleagueType] = []
colleagueWrappers = colleagueWrappers.filter {
guard let colleague = $0.colleague else { return false }
colleagues.append(colleague)
return true
}
return colleagues
}

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 3
public init() { }

Taking each commented section in turn:

1. You declare colleagueWrappers to hold onto the ColleagueWrapper instances, which

will be created under the hood by Mediator from colleagues passed to it.

2. You then add a computed property for colleagues. This uses filter to find
colleagues from colleagueWrappers that have already been released and then
returns an array of definitely non-nil colleagues.

3. You lastly declare init(), which will act as the public designated initializer for
Mediator.

You also need a means to add and remove colleagues. Add the following instance
methods after the previous code to do this:

// MARK: - Colleague Management

// 1
public func addColleague(_ colleague: ColleagueType,
strongReference: Bool = true) {
let wrapper: ColleagueWrapper
if strongReference {
wrapper = ColleagueWrapper(strongColleague: colleague)
} else {
wrapper = ColleagueWrapper(weakColleague: colleague)
}
colleagueWrappers.append(wrapper)
}

// 2
public func removeColleague(_ colleague: ColleagueType) {
guard let index = colleagues.index(where: {
($0 as AnyObject) === (colleague as AnyObject)

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}) else { return }
colleagueWrappers.remove(at: index)
}

Here’s what this code does:

1. As its name implies, you’ll use addColleague(_:strongReference:) to add a

colleague. Internally, this creates a ColleagueWrapper that either strongly or weakly
references colleague depending on whether strongReference is true or not.

2. Likewise, you’ll use removeColleague to remove a colleague. In such, you first

attempt to find the index for the ColleagueWrapper that matches the colleague
using pointer equality, === instead of ==, so that it’s the exact ColleagueType object.
If found, you remove the colleague wrapper at the given index.

Lastly, you need a means to actually invoke all of the colleagues. Add the following
methods after the previous ones:

public func invokeColleagues(closure: (ColleagueType) -> Void) {

colleagues.forEach(closure)
}

public func invokeColleagues(by colleague: ColleagueType,

closure: (ColleagueType) -> Void) {
colleagues.forEach {
guard ($0 as AnyObject) !== (colleague as AnyObject)
else { return }
closure($0)
}
}

Both of these methods iterate through colleagues, the computed property you defined
before that automatically filters out nil instances, and call the passed-in closure on
each colleague instance.

The only difference is invokeColleagues(by:closure:) does not call the passed-in

closure on the matching colleague that’s passed in. This is very useful to prevent a
colleague from acting upon changes or events that itself initiated.

You now have a very useful base Mediator class, and you’re ready to put this to good
use!

Open the Mediator page from the File hierarchy, and enter this after Code example:

// MARK: - Colleague Protocol

public protocol Colleague: class {
func colleague(_ colleague: Colleague?,
didSendMessage message: String)
}

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You declare Colleague here, which requires conforming colleagues to implement a

single method: colleague(_ colleague:didSendMessage:).

Add the following code next:

// MARK: - Mediator Protocol

public protocol MediatorProtocol: class {
func addColleague(_ colleague: Colleague)
func sendMessage(_ message: String, by colleague: Colleague)
}

You declare MediatorProtocol here, which requires conforming mediators to

implement two methods: addColleague(_:) and sendMessage(_:by:).

As you may have guessed from these protocols, you’ll create a mediator-colleague
example where colleagues will send message strings via the mediator.

However, these won’t be just any colleagues — that wouldn’t be any fun. Instead, the
colleagues will be the Three Musketeers: the legendary swordsmen Athos, Porthos and
Aramis calling out battle cries to one another!

Okay, okay... maybe the example is a little silly, but it actually works really well! And,
maybe, it will even help you remember the mediator pattern — “The mediator design
pattern is the three musketeers calling each other!”

Enter the following code next; ignore the resulting compiler error for now:

// MARK: - Colleague
// 1
public class Musketeer {

// 2
public var name: String
public weak var mediator: MediatorProtocol?

// 3
public init(mediator: MediatorProtocol, name: String) {
self.mediator = mediator
self.name = name
mediator.addColleague(self)
}

// 4
public func sendMessage(_ message: String) {
print("\(name) sent: \(message)")
mediator?.sendMessage(message, by: self)
}
}

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Let’s go over this step by step:

1. You declare Musketeer here, which will act as the colleague.

2. You create two properties, name and mediator.

3. Within init, you set the properties and call mediator.addColleague(_:) to register
this colleague; you’ll make Musketeer actually conform to Colleague next.

4. Within sendMessage, you print out the name and passed-in message to the console
and then call sendMessage(_:by:) on the mediator. Ideally, the mediator should
then forward this message onto all of the other colleagues.

Add the following code next:

extension Musketeer: Colleague {

public func colleague(_ colleague: Colleague?,
didSendMessage message: String) {
print("\(name) received: \(message)")
}
}

Here, you make Musketeer conform to Colleague. To do so, you implement its required
method colleague(_:didSendMessage:), where you print the Musketeer’s name and the
received message.

You next need to implement the mediator. Add the following code next to do so:

// MARK: - Mediator
// 1
public class MusketeerMediator: Mediator<Colleague> {

}
extension MusketeerMediator: MediatorProtocol {

// 2
public func addColleague(_ colleague: Colleague) {
self.addColleague(colleague, strongReference: true)
}

// 3
public func sendMessage(_ message: String,
by colleague: Colleague) {
invokeColleagues(by: colleague) {
$0.colleague(colleague, didSendMessage: message)
}
}
}

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Here’s what this does:

1. You create MusketeerMediator as a subclass of Mediator<Colleague>, and you make

this conform to MediatorProtocol via an extension.

2. Within addColleague(_:), you call its super class’ method for adding a colleague,
addColleague(_:strongReference:).

3. Within sendMessage(_:by:), you call its super class’ method

invokeColleagues(by:) to send the passed-in message to all colleagues except for
the matching passed-in colleague.

This takes care of the required mediator classes, so you’re now ready to try them out!
Add the following code next:

// MARK: - Example
let mediator = MusketeerMediator()
let athos = Musketeer(mediator: mediator, name: "Athos")
let porthos = Musketeer(mediator: mediator, name: "Porthos")
let aramis = Musketeer(mediator: mediator, name: "Aramis")

With the above, you declare an instance of MusketeerMediator called mediator and
three instances of Musketeer, called athos, porthos and aramis.

Add the following code next to send some messages:

athos.sendMessage("One for all...!")

print("")

porthos.sendMessage("and all for one...!")

print("")

aramis.sendMessage("Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!")

print("")

As a result, you should see the following printed to the console:

Athos sent: One for all...!

Porthos received: One for all...!
Aramis received: One for all...!

Porthos sent: and all for one...!

Athos received: and all for one...!
Aramis received: and all for one...!

Aramis sent: Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!

Athos received: Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!
Porthos received: Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!

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Note that the message senders do not receive the message. For example, the message
sent by Athos was received by Porthos and Aramis, yet Athos did not receive it. This is
exactly the behavior you’d expect to happen!

Using mediator directly, it’s also possible to send a message to all colleagues. Enter the
following code next to do so:

mediator.invokeColleagues() {
$0.colleague(nil, didSendMessage: "Charge!")
}

This results in the following printed to the console:

Athos received: Charge!

Porthos received: Charge!
Aramis received: Charge!

All of them get the message this time. Now let’s charge onwards with the project!

What should you be careful about?

This pattern is very useful in decoupling colleagues. Instead of colleagues interacting
directly, each colleague communicates through the mediator.

However, you need to be careful about turning the mediator into a “god” object — an
object that knows about every other object within a system.

If your mediator gets too big, consider breaking it up into multiple mediator–colleague
systems. Alternatively, consider other patterns to break up the mediator, such as
delegating some of its functionality.

Tutorial project
In this chapter, you’ll add functionality to an app called YetiDate. This app will help
users plan a date that involves three different locations: a bar, restaurant and movie
theater. It uses CocoaPods to pull in YelpAPI, a helper library for searching Yelp for said
venues.

In the Starter directory, open YetiDate ▸ YetiDate.xcworkspace (not the .xcodeproj)

in Xcode.

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If you haven’t used CocoaPods before, that’s OK! Everything you need has been
included for you in the starter project. The only thing you need to remember is to open
YetiDate.xcworkspace, instead of the YetiDate.xcodeproj file.

Before you can run the app, you first need to register for a Yelp API key.

Registering for a Yelp API key

If you worked through CoffeeQuest in the Intermediate Section, you’ve already
created a Yelp API key. You would have done this in Chapter 10, “Model-View-
ViewModel Pattern". Copy your existing key and paste it where indicated within
APIKeys.swift, then skip the rest of this section and head to the “Creating required
protocols” section.

If you didn’t work through CoffeeQuest, follow these instructions to generate a Yelp
API key.

Navigate to this URL in your web browser:

• https://www.yelp.com/developers/v3/manage_app

Create an account if you don’t have one, or sign in. Next, enter the following in the
Create App form (or if you’ve created an app before, use your existing API key):

• App Name: Enter “Yeti Date"

• App Website: Leave this blank

• Industry: Select “Business”

• Company: Leave this blank

• Contact Email: Enter your email address

• Description: Enter “Business search app"

• I have read and accepted the Yelp API Terms: Check this

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Your form should look as follows:

Press Create New App to continue, and you should see a success message:

Copy your API key and return to YetiDate.xcworkspace in Xcode.

Open APIKeys.swift from the File hierarchy, and paste your API key where
indicated.

Creating required protocols

Since the app shows nearby restaurants, bars and movie theaters, it works best for areas
with many businesses nearby. So the app’s default location has been set to San
Francisco, California.

Note: You can change the location of the simulator by clicking Debug ▸ Location
and then selecting a different option.

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If you build and run the app, you’ll be prompted to grant permission to access your
user’s location. Afterwards, however, you’ll see a blank map, and nothing happens!

Open PlanDateViewController.swift, which is the view controller that displays this

map and conforms to MKMapViewDelegate to receive map-related events. Scroll down to
mapView(_ mapView: didUpdate: userLocation), and you’ll find this call:

searchClient.update(userCoordinate: userLocation.coordinate)

This is what kicks off the process for searching for nearby businesses. Open
SearchClient.swift, and you’ll see several methods have // TODO comments within
them.

Here’s an overview of how the mediator-colleague system will work:

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• SearchColleague will act as the mediator. It will conform to SearchMediating and

have strong references to SearchColleague objects.

• YelpSearchColleague will act as the colleagues. It will conform to SearchColleague

and have an unowned reference to the mediator via SearchMediating.

• The files for SearchColleague, SearchColleagueMediating and YelpSearchColleague

have already been added for you, but these are currently blank. It’s your job to
implement these!

Firstly, open SearchColleague.swift and replace its contents with the following:

import CoreLocation.CLLocation
import YelpAPI

// 1
public protocol SearchColleague: class {

// 2
var category: YelpCategory { get }
var selectedBusiness: YLPBusiness? { get }

// 3
func update(userCoordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D)

// 4
func fellowColleague(_ colleague: SearchColleague,
didSelect business: YLPBusiness)

// 5
func reset()
}

Here’s what this is about, step-by-step:

1. You first declare SearchColleague as a class protocol.

2. You define two properties: category will be the YelpCategory to search for, and
selectedBusiness will be the YLPBusiness that has been selected.

You should know that YelpAPI actually doesn’t define categories as an enum, but
rather, it defines them as strings. To ensure correct string values are used, I’ve
added YelpCategory to Yeti Date for you with valid strings for restaurants, bars and
movie theaters and corresponding icon images.

3. You’ll call update(userCoordinate:) to indicate that the user’s location has been
updated.

4. You’ll call fellowColleague(_ colleague: didSelect business:) to indicate to the

other colleagues that the given colleague has selected a business.

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5. You’ll call reset() to remove any selectedBusiness, restore the SearchColleague to

its initial search state and perform a new search.

Open SearchColleagueMediating.swift and replace its contents with the following:

import YelpAPI

public protocol SearchColleagueMediating: class {

// 1
func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,
didSelect business: YLPBusiness)

// 2
func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,
didCreate viewModels: Set<BusinessMapViewModel>)

// 3
func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,
searchFailed error: Error?)
}

Here’s how you’ll use these methods:

1. You’ll call searchColleague(_ searchColleague: didSelect business:) whenever

a SearchColleague has selected a business.

2. You’ll call searchColleague(_ searchColleague: didCreate viewModels:) to

indicate that the SearchColleague has created new view models that need to be
displayed.

3. You’ll call searchColleague(_ searchColleague: searchFailed error:) to indicate

that a SearchColleague has encountered a network error while searching.

Open YelpSearchColleague.swift and replace its contents with the following:

import CoreLocation
import YelpAPI

public class YelpSearchColleague {

// 1
public let category: YelpCategory
public private(set) var selectedBusiness: YLPBusiness?

// 2
private var colleagueCoordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D?
private unowned let mediator: SearchColleagueMediating
private var userCoordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D?
private let yelpClient: YLPClient

// 3
private static let defaultQueryLimit = UInt(20)

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private static let defaultQuerySort = YLPSortType.bestMatched

private var queryLimit = defaultQueryLimit
private var querySort = defaultQuerySort

// 4
public init(category: YelpCategory,
mediator: SearchColleagueMediating) {
self.category = category
self.mediator = mediator
self.yelpClient = YLPClient(apiKey: YelpAPIKey)
}
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You declare two public properties: category and selectedBusiness.

2. You create several private properties for performing searches:

colleagueCoordinate, mediator, userCoordinate and yelpClient.
YelpSearchColleague will use these to perform searches around either the user’s
location, given by userCoordinate, or around another selected colleague’s business
location, given by colleagueCoordinate.

3. You declare private properties for limiting search results: queryLimit, which has a
default value given by defaultQueryLimit, and querySort, which has a default value
given by defaultQuerySort. You’ll see shortly how these are used.

4. You declare the designated initializer, which accepts category and mediator.

Add the following code next, right after the previous code:

// MARK: - SearchColleague
// 1
extension YelpSearchColleague: SearchColleague {

// 2
public func fellowColleague(_ colleague: SearchColleague,
didSelect business: YLPBusiness) {
colleagueCoordinate = CLLocationCoordinate2D(
business.location.coordinate)
queryLimit /= 2
querySort = .distance
performSearch()
}

// 3
public func update(userCoordinate: CLLocationCoordinate2D) {
self.userCoordinate = userCoordinate
performSearch()
}

// 4
public func reset() {

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colleagueCoordinate = nil
queryLimit = YelpSearchColleague.defaultQueryLimit
querySort = YelpSearchColleague.defaultQuerySort
selectedBusiness = nil
performSearch()
}

private func performSearch() {

// TODO
}
}

Let’s go over this:

1. You make YelpSearchColleague conform to SearchColleague, as intended per the

design overview before.

2. In response to receiving fellowColleague(_ colleague: didSelect business:),

you set the colleagueCoordinate, divide the queryLimit by two, change the
querySort to .distance, and call performSearch() to do a new search.

This results in a focused search around the colleagueCoordinate: You limit the
results by reducing queryLimit and show the closest results by changing querySort
to distance.

3. In response to receiving update(userCoordinate:), you set self.userCoordinate

and then perform a new search.

4. In response to receiving reset(), you reset colleagueCoordinate, queryLimit,

querySort and selectedBusiness to their default values and then perform a new
search.

Next, replace the contents of performSearch() with the following:

// 1
guard selectedBusiness == nil,
let coordinate = colleagueCoordinate ??
userCoordinate else { return }

// 2
let yelpCoordinate = YLPCoordinate(
latitude: coordinate.latitude,
longitude: coordinate.longitude)
let query = YLPQuery(coordinate: yelpCoordinate)
query.categoryFilter = [category.rawValue]
query.limit = queryLimit
query.sort = querySort

yelpClient.search(with: query) {
[weak self] (search, error) in
guard let self = self else { return }

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guard let search = search else {

// 3
self.mediator.searchColleague(self,
searchFailed: error)
return
}
// 4
var set: Set<BusinessMapViewModel> = []
for business in search.businesses {
guard let coordinate = business.location.coordinate
else { continue }
let viewModel = BusinessMapViewModel(
business: business,
coordinate: coordinate,
primaryCategory: self.category,
onSelect: { [weak self] business in
guard let self = self else { return }
self.selectedBusiness = business
self.mediator.searchColleague(self,
didSelect: business)
})
set.insert(viewModel)
}

// 5
DispatchQueue.main.async {
self.mediator.searchColleague(self, didCreate: set)
}
}

This seems like a lot of work, but it’s actually not too difficult to understand.

1. You first validate that selectedBusiness is nil and that there’s a either a non-nil
colleagueCoordinate or a non-nil userCoordinate. If either of these isn’t true, you
return early.

2. You then set up a YLPQuery and use this to query YLPClient.

3. If there’s not a search object, then the Yelp API failed. If so, you inform the
mediator and return early.

4. You build up a Set<BusinessMapViewModel> by iterating through the

search.businesses. BusinessMapViewModel conforms to MKAnnotation, which is
exactly what’s needed to be displayed on the map.

5. You dispatch to the main queue and notify the mediator that the view models were
created by the YelpSearchColleague.

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Great! This takes care of the colleagues, and you can now finish the mediator
implementation.

Open SearchClient.swift and replace the class declaration with the following:

public class SearchClient: Mediator<SearchColleague> {

Here, you make SearchClient subclass Mediator<SearchColleague>, instead of

NSObject.

Add the following code at the end of the file:

// MARK: - SearchColleagueMediating
// 1
extension SearchClient: SearchColleagueMediating {

// 2
public func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,
didSelect business: YLPBusiness) {

delegate?.searchClient(self,
didSelect: business,
for: searchColleague.category)

invokeColleagues(by: searchColleague) { colleague in

colleague.fellowColleague(colleague, didSelect: business)
}

notifyDelegateIfAllBusinessesSelected()
}

private func notifyDelegateIfAllBusinessesSelected() {

guard let delegate = delegate else { return }
var categoryToBusiness: [YelpCategory : YLPBusiness] = [:]
for colleague in colleagues {
guard let business = colleague.selectedBusiness else {
return
}
categoryToBusiness[colleague.category] = business
}
delegate.searchClient(self, didCompleteSelection: categoryToBusiness)
}

// 3
public func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,
didCreate viewModels:
Set<BusinessMapViewModel>) {

delegate?.searchClient(self,
didCreate: viewModels,
for: searchColleague.category)
}

// 4
public func searchColleague(_ searchColleague: SearchColleague,

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searchFailed error: Error?) {

delegate?.searchClient(self,
failedFor: searchColleague.category,
error: error)
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You make SearchClient conform to SearchColleagueMediating via an extension.

2. In response to searchColleague(_ searchColleague: didSelect business:), you

do the following: (i) Notify the delegate that a business was selected by the given
colleague; (ii) Notify the other colleagues that a business was selected; and (iii) In
the event that each of the colleagues has a selectedBusiness, you notify the
delegate that a selection was completed.

3. In response to searchColleague(_ searchColleague: didCreate viewModels), you

notify the delegate. In turn, the delegate is responsible for displaying these view
models.

4. Finally, in response to searchColleague(_:searchFailed:), you notify the delegate.

In turn, the delegate is responsible for handling the error and/or retrying.

Just a few more methods to go! Replace the contents of setupColleagues() with the
following:

let restaurantColleague = YelpSearchColleague(

category: .restaurants, mediator: self)
addColleague(restaurantColleague)

let barColleague = YelpSearchColleague(

category: .bars, mediator: self)
addColleague(barColleague)

let movieColleague = YelpSearchColleague(

category: .movieTheaters, mediator: self)
addColleague(movieColleague)

With this code, you create YelpSearchColleagues for .restaurants, .bars

and .movieTheaters categories.

Replace the contents of update(userCoordinate:) with the following:

invokeColleagues() { colleague in
colleague.update(userCoordinate: userCoordinate)
}

In response to getting a new userCoordinate, you pass this along to each of the
SearchColleague instances.

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Lastly, replace the contents of reset() with the following:

invokeColleagues() { colleague in
colleague.reset()
}

Likewise, you simply pass the reset() call onto each of the SearchColleague instances.

Whoo, that was a lot of work! Great job!

Build and run the app. The map should now show restaurants, bars and movie theaters.

Tap on an icon, and you’ll see a callout with a green checkmark.

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Upon tapping the checkmark, the related YelpSearchColleague will get its
selectedBusiness set, communicate this to its mediator, trigger the other colleagues to
do a new search and ultimately generate new view models to show on the map!
Eventually once you’ve selected one of each business type, you’ll see a screen showing
your choices.

Key points
You learned about the mediator pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The mediator pattern encapsulates how objects communicate with one another. It
involves four types: colleagues, a colleague protocol, a mediator, and a mediator
protocol.

• The colleagues are the objects that communicate; the colleague protocol defines
methods and properties all colleagues must have; the mediator controls the
communication of the colleagues; and the mediator protocol defines required
methods and properties that the mediator must have.

• In lieu of talking directly, colleagues hold onto and communicate through the
mediator. The colleague protocol and mediator protocol helps prevent tight coupling
between all objects involved.

Where to go from here?

You also created Yeti Dates in this chapter! This is a neat app, but there’s a lot more you
can do with it:

• YelpSearchClient isn’t very efficient with searches. You can improve this by using
caching and only performing searches when absolutely required.

• After selecting businesses for each YelpSearchClient, a “Review Date” page appears,
but it’s very basic. There’s a lot you can do to improve this, such as giving the option
to navigate to each address.

• Why stop at just restaurants, bars and movie theaters? You could let users pick
whichever categories they’re interested in grouping together.

Each of these are possible using the existing patterns that you’ve learned in this book.
Feel free to continue building out Yeti Date as much as you like.

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When you're ready, continue onto the next chapter to learn about the composite design
pattern.

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20 Chapter 20: Composite
Pattern
By Jay Strawn

The composite pattern is a structural pattern that groups a set of objects into a tree
structure so that they may be manipulated as though they were one object. It uses three
types:

1. The component protocol ensures all constructs in the tree can be treated the same
way.

2. A leaf is a component of the tree that does not have child elements.

3. A composite is a container that can hold leaf objects and composites.

Both composites and leaf nodes derive from the component protocol. You can even have
several different leaf classes held in a composite object.

For example, an Array is a composite. The component is the Array itself. The composite
is a private container used by Array to contain leaf objects. Each leaf is a concrete type
such as Int, String or whatever you add to the Array.

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When should you use it?

If your app’s class hierarchy forms a branching pattern, trying to create two types of
classes for branches and nodes can make it difficult for those classes to communicate.

You can solve this problem with the composite pattern by treating branches and nodes
the same by making them conform them to a protocol. This adds a layer of abstraction
to your models and ultimately reduces their complexity.

Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then open
the Composite page.

For this playground example, you’ll make an app that stores different elements in a tree
pattern.

A file hierarchy is an everyday example of the composite pattern. Think about files and
folders. All .mp3 and .jpeg files, as well as folders, share a lot of functions: “open”,
“move to trash,” “get info,” “rename,” etc. You can move and store groups of different
files, even if they aren’t all the same type, because they all conform to a component
protocol.

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To make your own file hierarchy in the playground, add the following after Code
Example:

import Foundation

protocol File {
var name: String { get set }
func open()
}

You’ve just created a component protocol, which all the leaf objects and composites will
conform to. Next, you’re going to add a couple of leaf objects. Add the following to the
end of the playground:

final class eBook: File {

var name: String
var author: String

init(name: String, author: String) {

self.name = name
self.author = author
}

func open() {
print("Opening \(name) by \(author) in iBooks...\n")
}
}

final class Music: File {

var name: String
var artist: String

init(name: String, artist: String) {

self.name = name
self.artist = artist
}

func open() {
print("Playing \(name) by \(artist) in iTunes...\n")
}
}

You’ve added two leaf objects that conform to the component protocol. They all have a
name property and an open function, but each open() varies based on the object’s class.
Next, add the following code to the end of the playground:

final class Folder: File {

var name: String
lazy var files: [File] = []

init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}

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func addFile(file: File) {

self.files.append(file)
}

func open() {
print("Displaying the following files in \(name)...")
for file in files {
print(file.name)
}
print("\n")
}
}

Your Folder object is a composite, and it has an array that can hold any object that
conforms to the File protocol. This means that, not only can a Folder hold Music and
eBook objects, it can also hold other Folder objects.

Feel free to play around with creating objects and placing them in folders within the
playground. Here’s one example showcasing a few leaf objects and composites:

let psychoKiller = Music(name: "Psycho Killer",

artist: "The Talking Heads")
let rebelRebel = Music(name: "Rebel Rebel",
artist: "David Bowie")
let blisterInTheSun = Music(name: "Blister in the Sun",
artist: "Violent Femmes")

let justKids = eBook(name: "Just Kids",

author: "Patti Smith")

let documents = Folder(name: "Documents")

let musicFolder = Folder(name: "Great 70s Music")

documents.addFile(file: musicFolder)
documents.addFile(file: justKids)

musicFolder.addFile(file: psychoKiller)
musicFolder.addFile(file: rebelRebel)

blisterInTheSun.open()
justKids.open()

documents.open()
musicFolder.open()

You’re able to treat all of these objects uniformly and call the same functions on them.
But, to quote the Talking Heads song mentioned above: "Qu’est-ce que c’est? (What does
this mean?)"

Using composite patterns becomes meaningful when you’re able to treat different
objects the same way, and reusing objects and writing unit tests becomes much less
complicated.

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Imagine trying to create a container for your files without using a component protocol!
Storing different types of objects would get complicated very quickly.

What should you be careful about?

Make sure your app has a branching structure before using the composite pattern. If
you see that your objects have a lot of nearly identical code, conforming them to a
protocol is a great idea, but not all situations involving protocols will require a
composite object.

Tutorial project
Throughout this section, you’ll add functionality to an app called Defeat Your ToDo
List.

In the Projects ▸ Starter directory, open

DefeatYourToDoList\DefeatYourToDoList.xcodeproj in Xcode. This app allows the
user to add items to a to-do list. As the user checks items off, a warrior at the top of the
screen moves closer to treasure at the end of a dungeon. The warrior reaches the end
when the user completes 100% of the tasks.

In this project, you’re going to add a feature in which a user can create a task that holds
smaller tasks within, like a checklist.

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First, open Models.swift and add the following below import Foundation:

protocol ToDo {
var name: String { get set }
var isComplete: Bool { get set }
var subtasks: [ToDo] { get set }
}

final class ToDoItemWithCheckList: ToDo {

var name: String
var isComplete: Bool
var subtasks: [ToDo]

init(name: String, subtasks: [ToDo]) {

self.name = name
isComplete = false
self.subtasks = subtasks
}
}

Here, you’ve added a component protocol, called ToDo, to which all of your to-do objects
should conform. You’ve also added a composite object called ToDoItemWithCheckList,
which stores your checklist items in an array called subtasks.

Now, in order to actually use the composite pattern, you need to make your default to-
do conform to the component protocol. Still in Models.swift, replace ToDoItem with the
following code:

final class ToDoItem: ToDo {

var name: String
var isComplete: Bool
var subtasks: [ToDo]

init(name: String) {
self.name = name
isComplete = false
subtasks = []
}
}

You’ll notice that, in order to have your default ToDoItem conform to the ToDo protocol,
you have to give it a subtasks property. While initializing subtasks as an empty array
may seem like an unnecessary added complexity, you’ll see in the next steps that having
both classes include all possible properties makes it easier to reuse the custom
ToDoCell for the collection view in your view controller.

Next, open ViewController.swift. You want to start refactoring at the top, underneath
the IBOutlet connections. Each task is stored in an array called toDos and, when
completed, they are added to completedToDos. There are two arrays so that you know
the percentage of tasks completed, which will move the warrior along the path.

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First, you want both arrays to accept items that conform to the component protocol
instead of simply ToDoItem. Replace the two properties with the following:

var toDos: [ToDo] = []

var completedToDos: [ToDo] = []

You should get a compiler error in collectionView(_:didSelectItemAt:). To fix this

error, inside collectionView(_:didSelectItemAt:), replace:

let currentToDo = toDos[indexPath.row]

With the following:

var currentToDo = toDos[indexPath.row]

You have to do this because Swift can’t figure out whether the protocol, ToDo, is a struct
or a class. If it were a struct, then currentToDo would have to be declared var to be able
to mutate it. Of course, you know it’s always actually a class though.

Next, open ToDoCell.swift and replace:

var subtasks: [ToDoItem] = []

With the following:

var subtasks: [ToDo] = []

Similar to what you did in ViewController.swift, you’ll need to scroll to

collectionView(_:didSelectItemAt:) and replace:

let currentToDo = subtasks[indexPath.row]

With the following:

var currentToDo = subtasks[indexPath.row]

Next, open ViewController.swift. Now, it’s time to get your collection view cells to
display both ToDoItem and ToDoItemWithCheckList.

Start by navigating to collectionView(_:cellForItemAt:) in the

UICollectionViewDataSource extension.

Add the following just above return cell:

if currentToDo is ToDoItemWithCheckList {
cell.subtasks = currentToDo.subtasks
}

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This if statement populates the subtasks in ToDoCell. The other collection view on the
custom ToDoCell is already set up for you, so no changes need to be made there.

Next, for the collection view located in the view controller, you want to be able to
change the cell’s height based on how many subtasks are on the checklist of your to-do
item.

Scroll down to collectionView(_:layout:sizeForItemAt:) and replace its contents

with the following:

let width = collectionView.frame.width

let currentToDo = toDos[indexPath.row]

let heightVariance = 60 * (currentToDo.subtasks.count)

let addedHeight = CGFloat(heightVariance)

let height = collectionView.frame.height * 0.15 + addedHeight

return CGSize(width: width, height: height)

Now, each cell’s height will increase by 60 for each subtask in the composite to-do item.

Now, it’s time to add the ability for the user to create a ToDoItemWithCheckList! Add the
following method to the end of the MARK: - Internal extension:

func createTaskWithChecklist() {
let controller = UIAlertController(
title: "Task Name",
message: "",
preferredStyle: .alert)

controller.addTextField { textField in
textField.placeholder = "Enter Task Title"
}

for _ in 1...4 {
controller.addTextField { textField in
textField.placeholder = "Add Subtask"
}
}

let saveAction = UIAlertAction(title: "Save",

style: .default) {
[weak self] alert in

let titleTextField = controller.textFields![0]

let firstTextField = controller.textFields![1]
let secondTextField = controller.textFields![2]
let thirdTextField = controller.textFields![3]
let fourthTextField = controller.textFields![4]

let textFields = [firstTextField,

secondTextField,

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thirdTextField,
fourthTextField]
var subtasks: [ToDo] = []

for textField in textFields where textField.text != "" {

subtasks.append(ToDoItem(name: textField.text!))
}

let currentToDo = ToDoItemWithCheckList(

name: titleTextField.text!, subtasks: subtasks)
self?.toDos.append(currentToDo)
self?.toDoListCollectionView.reloadData()
self?.setWarriorPosition()
}

let cancelAction = UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel",

style: .default)
controller.addAction(saveAction)
controller.addAction(cancelAction)

present(controller, animated: true)

}

This function adds a ToDoItemWithCheckList to the todos array, reloads the collection
view and resets the warrior’s position. Now, all that’s left to do is to add the ability to
call this function from the UIAlertController. Add the following code inside
addToDo(_:) above present(alertController, animated: true):

controller.addAction(
UIAlertAction(title: "Task with Checklist", style: .default) {
[weak self] _ in

self?.createTaskWithChecklist()
})

All set! Now you can add as many to-do items as you like. Build and run the app. Try out
the new functionality, and go get that treasure!

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Key Points
You learned about the composite pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The composite pattern is a structural pattern that groups a set of objects into a tree
so that they may be manipulated as though they were one object.

• If your app’s class hierarchy forms a branching pattern, you can treat branches and
nodes as almost the same objects by conforming them to a component protocol. The
protocol adds a layer of abstraction to your models, which reduces their complexity.

• This is a great pattern to help simplify apps that have multiple classes with similar
features. With it, you can reuse code more often and reduce complexity in your
classes.

• A file hierarchy is an everyday example of the composite pattern. All .mp3 and .jpeg
files, as well as folders, share a lot of functions such as “open” and “move to trash.”
You can move and store groups of different files, even if they aren’t all the same type,
as they all conform to a component protocol.

With your Defeat Your ToDo List app now using a composite pattern, it’s really
convenient that you can reuse the same custom cell on both ToDoItem and
ToDoItemWithCheckList. Also, since a ToDoItemWithCheckList can hold another
ToDoItemWithCheckList, you could actually write this app to have an infinite number of
checklists within checklists! (We wouldn’t recommend that on such a tiny screen,
though!)

Feel free to continue experimenting with this app as much as you'd like. When you're
ready, continue onto the next chapter to learn about the command design pattern.

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21 Chapter 21: Command
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The command pattern is a behavioral pattern that encapsulates information to perform

an action into a command object. It involves three types:

1. The invoker stores and executes commands.

2. The command encapsulates the action as an object.

3. The receiver is the object that’s acted upon by the command.

Hence, this pattern allows you to model the concept of executing an action.

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When should you use it?

Use this pattern whenever you want to create actions that can be executed on receivers
at a later point in time. For example, you can create and store commands to be
performed by a computer AI, and then execute these over time.

Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then open
the Command page.

For this playground example, you’ll create a simple guessing game: a Doorman will open
and close a Door a random number of times, and you’ll guess in advance whether the
door will be open or closed in the end.

Add the following after Code Example:

import Foundation

// MARK: - Receiver
public class Door {
public var isOpen = false
}

Door is a simple model that will act as the receiver. It will be opened and closed by
setting its isOpen property.

Add the following code next:

// MARK: - Command
// 1
public class DoorCommand {
public let door: Door
public init(_ door: Door) {
self.door = door
}
public func execute() { }
}

// 2
public class OpenCommand: DoorCommand {
public override func execute() {
print("opening the door...")
door.isOpen = true
}
}

// 3

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public class CloseCommand: DoorCommand {

public override func execute() {
print("closing the door...")
door.isOpen = false
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first define a class called DoorCommand, which acts at the command. This class
is intended to be an abstract base class, meaning you won’t instantiate it directly.
Rather, you will instantiate and use its subclasses.

This class has one property, door, which you set within its initializer. It also has a
single method, execute(), which you override within its subclasses.

2. You next define a class called OpenCommand as a subclass of DoorCommand. This

overrides execute(), wherein it prints a message and sets door.isOpen to true.

3. You lastly define CloseCommand as a subclass of DoorCommand. This likewise overrides

execute() to print a message and sets door.isOpen to false.

Enter this code next:

// MARK: - Invoker
// 1
public class Doorman {

// 2
public let commands: [DoorCommand]
public let door: Door

// 3
public init(door: Door) {
let commandCount = arc4random_uniform(10) + 1
self.commands = (0 ..< commandCount).map { index in
return index % 2 == 0 ?
OpenCommand(door) : CloseCommand(door)
}
self.door = door
}

// 4
public func execute() {
print("Doorman is...")
commands.forEach { $0.execute() }
}
}

Here’s what this does in detail:

1. You define a class called Doorman, which will act as the invoker.

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2. You define two properties on Doorman: commands and door.

3. Within init(door:), you generate a random number, commandCount, to determine

how many times the door should be opened and closed. You set commands by
iterating from 0 to commandCount and returning either an OpenCommand or
CloseCommand based on whether or not the index is even.

4. You lastly define execute(), wherein you call execute() on each of the commands.

Great! You’re ready to try out these classes. Enter the following at the end of the
playground:

// MARK: - Example
public let isOpen = true
print("You predict the door will be " +
"\(isOpen ? "open" : "closed").")
print("")

You make a prediction for whether the Door will ultimately be open or closed, as
determined by isOpen. You should see this printed to the console:

You predict the door will be open.

If you don’t think it will be open, change isOpen to false instead.

Add the following code next:

let door = Door()

let doorman = Doorman(door: door)
doorman.execute()
print("")

You create a door and doorman, and then call doorman.execute(). You should see
something like this printed to the console. The number of opening and closing
statements will depend on whatever random number is chosen!

Doorman is...
opening the door...
closing the door...
opening the door...

To complete the game, you should also print out whether your guess was right or
wrong.

Add the following to do so:

if door.isOpen == isOpen {
print("You were right! :]")
} else {
print("You were wrong :[")

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}
print("The door is \(door.isOpen ? "open" : "closed").")

If you guessed right, you’ll see this printed to the console:

You were right!

The door is open.

To repeat the game, press the “Stop Playground” button, and then press the blue “Play”
button that appears.

What should you be careful about?

The command pattern can result in many command objects. Consequently, this can lead
to code that’s harder to read and maintain. If you don’t need to perform actions later,
you may be better off simply calling the receiver’s methods directly.

Tutorial project
You’ll build a game app called RayWenToe in this chapter. This is a variation on
TicTacToe. Here are the rules:

1. Like TicTacToe, players place Xs and Os on a 3x3 gameboard. The first player is X,
and the second player is O.

2. Unlike TicTacToe, each player secretly makes five selections at the beginning of the
game, which may not be changed. Players then alternate placing Xs and Os on the
gameboard in their preselected order.

3. If a player places his mark on a spot that’s already taken, his mark overwrites the
existing mark.

4. A player may select the same spot multiple times, and he may even select the same
spot for all of his selections.

5. After all of the players’ selections have been played, a winner is decided.

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6. Like TicTacToe, if only one player has three marks in a row — vertically, horizontally
or diagonally — that player is the winner.

7. If both players have three marks in a row, or neither player has, the first player (X) is
the winner.

8. Thereby, it’s a reasonable strategy for the first player to try to get three Xs in a row
or to prevent his opponent from getting three Os in a row.

9. The only way for the second player (O) to win is to get three Os in a row without his
opponent having three Xs in a row as well.

Can you guess which pattern you’ll use? The command pattern, of course!

Building your game

Open Finder and navigate to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter.
Then, open starter\RayWenToe\RayWenToe.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Build and run, and you’ll be presented with a Select Gameplay Mode screen:

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Select One Player Mode, and you’ll see the gameboard:

If you tap on a spot, however, nothing happens. You need to implement this logic.

Open GameManager.swift, and scroll to onePlayerMode(); this method is a class

constructor to create a GameManager for one-player mode.

RayWenToe uses the state pattern — see Chapter 15, “State Pattern,” if you’re not
familiar with it — to support both one-player and two-player modes. Specifically, it uses
three states:

1. PlayerInputState allows the user to select spots on the gameboard.

2. ComputerInputState generates spots on the gameboard for the computer AI.

3. PlayGameState alternates placing player1 and player2 positions on the board.

Open PlayerInputState.swift, and you’ll see there are a few methods containing TODO:
- comments. Likewise, if you open ComputerInputState.swift and
PlayGameState.swift, you’ll see a few other methods with similar comments. These
methods all require a command object to complete them!

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Creating and storing command objects

Add a new Swift file called MoveCommand.swift to the GameManager group within
the Controllers group, and replace its contents with the following:

// 1
public struct MoveCommand {

// 2
public var gameboard: Gameboard

// 3
public var gameboardView: GameboardView

// 4
public var player: Player

// 5
public var position: GameboardPosition
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You first defined a new struct called MoveCommand. Ultimately, this will place a
player’s move onto the gameboard and the gameboardView.

2. The Gameboard is a model that represents the TicTacToe board. It contains a 2D

array of positions, which holds onto the Player that has played at a given spot on
the board.

3. The GameboardView is a view for the RayWenToe board. It already contains logic to
draw the board and to draw a MarkView, representing either an X or an O, at a given
position. It also has the logic to notify its delegate in response to touches, which
has been set to GameplayViewController.

4. The Player represents the user that performed this move. It contains a
markViewPrototype, which uses the prototype pattern — see Chapter 14, “Prototype
Pattern,” if you’re not familiar with it — to allow a new MarkView to be created by
copying it.

5. The GameboardPosition is a model for the gameboard position at which this move
should be performed.

In order to be useful, you also need to declare a means to execute this command. Add
the following method next, right before the closing curly brace:

public func execute(completion: (() -> Void)? = nil) {

// 1
gameboard.setPlayer(player, at: position)

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// 2
gameboardView.placeMarkView(
player.markViewPrototype.copy(), at: position,
animated: true, completion: completion)
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first set the player at the position on the gameboard. This doesn’t affect how
the view looks but, rather, it’s used to determine the game’s winner at the end.

2. You then create a copy of the player’s markViewPrototype and set this at the given
position on the gameboardView. This method has already been implemented for
you, including animation and calling the completion closure when its finished. If
you’re curious how it works, see GameboardView.swift for its implementation.

Since gameboard and gameboardView are acted upon by this command, they are both
receivers.

With this done, you’re now ready to put the command into use! Open
GameManager.swift and add the following, right after the gameboard property:

internal lazy var movesForPlayer =

[player1: [MoveCommand](), player2: [MoveCommand]()]

You’ll use this to hold onto the MoveCommand objects for a given Player.

Next, open GameState.swift and add the following, right after the gameplayView
property:

public var movesForPlayer: [Player: [MoveCommand]] {

get { return gameManager.movesForPlayer }
set { gameManager.movesForPlayer = newValue }
}

Here, you declare a computed property for movesForPlayer, which sets and returns
gameManager.movesForPlayer. You’ll use this property a lot in both PlayerInputState
and ComputerInputState, so this computed property will make your code a bit shorter
and easier to read.

This handles storing the command objects! You next need to actually create them.

Open PlayerInputState.swift and replace addMove(at:) with the following:

// 1
public override func addMove(at position: GameboardPosition) {

// 2
let moveCount = movesForPlayer[player]!.count

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guard moveCount < turnsPerPlayer else { return }

// 3
displayMarkView(at: position, turnNumber: moveCount + 1)

// 4
enqueueMoveCommand(at: position)
updateMoveCountLabel()
}

Here’s what this does:

1. addMove(at:) is called by GameManager, which in turn is called by

GamePlayViewController in response to the user selecting a spot on the
GameboardView. This method is where you need to display a MarkView for the
selection and enqueue a MoveCommand to be executed later.

2. You next create a variable for moveCount by getting the count of movesForPlayer for
the given Player. If moveCount isn’t less than turnsPerPlayer, then the user has
already picked all of her spots, and you return early.

3. You then call displayMarkView(at:turnNumber:), passing the selected position and

moveCount + 1. Since moveCount is zero-indexed, you increment this by 1 to show
the first turn as “1” instead of “0”.

displayMarkView(at:turnNumber:) has already been implemented for you.

4. You lastly call enqueueMoveCommand(at:) and updateMoveCountLabel(). Both of

these require you to use MoveCommand, so you’ll need to implement these next.

Implementing move commands

Replace the contents of enqueueMoveCommand(at:) with the following:

let newMove = MoveCommand(gameboard: gameboard,

gameboardView: gameboardView,
player: player,
position: position)

movesForPlayer[player]!.append(newMove)

You here create a new MoveCommand and append this to the existing array at
movesForPlayer[player].

Next, replace the contents of updateMoveCountLabel() with the following:

let turnsRemaining = turnsPerPlayer - movesForPlayer[player]!.count

gameplayView.moveCountLabel.text =
"\(turnsRemaining) Moves Left"

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You calculate the turnsRemaining by subtracting the number of moves already added,
given by movesForPlayer[player]!.count, from the turnsPerPlayer, which is the total
number of moves allowed per player. You then use this to set moveCountLabel.text.

Build and run, select One Player Mode and tap a spot on the gameboard. You should
now see that an X appears! You can even tap on the same spot multiple times, and this
is handled correctly, too.

If you press Play or Undo, nothing happens. You need to implement

handleActionPressed() and handleUndoPressed() for these.

Still in PlayerInputState.swift, replace the contents of handleActionPressed() with

the following:

guard movesForPlayer[player]!.count == turnsPerPlayer

else { return }
gameManager.transitionToNextState()

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You first verify the player has made all of her selections. If not, you return early.
Otherwise, you call gameManager.transitionToNextState(). Said method simply moves
to the next GameState: in one-player mode, this transitions to ComputerInputState, and,
in two-player mode, this goes to another PlayerInputState for the other player.

Next, replace the contents of handleUndoPressed() with the following:

// 1
var moves = movesForPlayer[player]!
guard let position = moves.popLast()?.position else { return }

// 2
movesForPlayer[player] = moves
updateMoveCountLabel()

// 3
let markView = gameboardView.markViewForPosition[position]!
_ = markView.turnNumbers.popLast()

// 4
guard markView.turnNumbers.count == 0 else { return }
gameboardView.removeMarkView(at: position, animated: false)

There’s a lot happening here:

1. You first get the moves for the given player from movesForPlayer, and you call
popLast() to remove and return the last object. If there aren’t any commands to
pop, this will return nil, and you return early. If there is a command that’s popped,
you get its position.

2. You update movesForPlayer[player] with the new array of moves and call
updateMoveCountLabel() to show the new number of turns remaining.

3. You get the markView from the gameboardView and call turnNumbers.popLast() on it.
MarkView uses turnNumbers in order to display the order that it was selected. This is
an array since the player can select the same spot more than once.

4. You lastly check if markView.turnNumbers.count equals zero, and, if so, this means
all of the moves for the MarkView have been popped. In which case, you remove it
from the gameboardView by calling removeMarkView(at:animated:).

Build and run, select One Player Mode and tap a spot to add a move. Then, press
Undo, and your move will be removed.

If you press Play, however, still nothing happens. What gives?

Remember how PlayGameState.swift and ComputerInputState.swift also had

stubbed out methods? Yep, you have to implement these to play the game!

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Open PlayGameState.swift and add the following method after begin():

private func combinePlayerMoves() -> [MoveCommand] {

var result: [MoveCommand] = []
let player1Moves = movesForPlayer[player1]!
let player2Moves = movesForPlayer[player2]!
assert(player1Moves.count == player2Moves.count)
for i in 0 ..< player1Moves.count {
result.append(player1Moves[i])
result.append(player2Moves[i])
}
return result
}

As its name implies, this method combines the MoveCommand objects for Player1 and
Player2 into a single array. You’ll use this to alternate performing each moves for each
player.

Add the following method next:

private func performMove(at index: Int,

with moves: [MoveCommand]) {

// 1
guard index < moves.count else {
displayWinner()
return
}

// 2
let move = moves[index]
move.execute(completion: { [weak self] in
self?.performMove(at: index + 1, with: moves)
})
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You check that the passed-in index is less than moves.count. If it isn’t, then all of
the moves have been played, and you call displayWinner() to calculate and display
the winner.

2. You get the move for the given index and then execute it. Within the completion
closure, you recursively call performMove(at: with:) again, incrementing the index
by 1. In this manner, you will execute each of the moves in order.

You also need to call these methods. Replace the TODO comment within begin() with the
following:

let gameMoves = combinePlayerMoves()

performMove(at: 0, with: gameMoves)

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Here, you simply use the methods you just created.

Awesome! You’re ready to try out the game. Build and run, but this time select Two
Player Mode.

Select gameboard spots for the first player and press Next. Then, select spots for the
second player and press Play. You’ll then see each of the MoveCommands executed in
order and animated onscreen.

If you press New Game, however, you’ll notice there’s an issue - the “moves left” label
shows as 0! This is because you don't currently reset movesForPlayer whenever a new
game is started. Fortunately, this is an easy fix.

Open GameManager.swift and replace the TODO comment within newGame() with the
following:

movesForPlayer = [player1: [], player2: []]

You can now play as many games as you'd like in Two Player Mode!

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In case you don't have a friend around, you also need to complete One Player Mode. To
do so, you'll need to complete ComputerInputState.swift. Instead of accepting spot
selections from a user as PlayerInputState does, ComputerInputState will generate
these automatically.

Open ComputerInputState.swift and replace the TODO comment within begin() with
this:

movesForPlayer[player] = positions.map {
MoveCommand(gameboard: gameboard,
gameboardView: gameboardView,
player: player,
position: $0)
}
gameManager.transitionToNextState()

The logic to generate positions to play on has already been implemented for you, via
generateRandomWinningCombination(). Here, you map those positions to create an array
of MoveCommand objects, which you set on movesForPlayer. You then immediately called
gameManager.transitionToNextState(), which will ultimately transition to
PlayGameState and begin the game.

Build and run, and select One Player Mode. Pick your spots, press Play, and watch the
game play out!

Key points
You learned about the command pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The command pattern encapsulates information to perform an action into a

command object. It involves three types: an invoker, command and receiver.

• The invoker stores and executes commands; the command encapsulates an action
as an object; and the receiver is the object that's acted upon.

• This pattern works best for actions that need to be stored and executed later. If you
always intend to execute actions immediately, consider calling the methods directly
on the receiver instead.

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Where to go from here?

You created a fun variant of TicTacToe where players select their moves in advance.
There's still a lot of functionality and changes you can make to RayWenToe:

• You can use a larger board size, instead of the vanilla size of 3x3. Both GameboardView
and Gameboard have been written generically to support arbitrary board sizes of 3x3
or larger, so you can easily change this and see how it affects the game.

• Instead of just showing a text label for who won, you can create a new GameState to
draw a line connecting the winning views.

• You can add a three-person variation and a new mark entirely, instead of just X and O.

Each of these is possible using the existing patterns you've already learned from this
book. Feel free to continue experimenting with RayWenToe as much as you like.

When you’re ready, continue onto the next chapter to learn about the chain-of-
responsibility pattern.

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22 Chapter 22: Chain-of-
Responsibility Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The chain-of-responsibility pattern is a behavioral design pattern that allows an event

to be processed by one of many handlers. It involves three types:

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1. The client accepts and passes events to an instance of a handler protocol. Events
may be simple, property-only structs or complex objects, such as intricate user
actions.

2. The handler protocol defines required properties and methods that concrete
handlers must implement. This may be substituted for an abstract, base class
instead allowing for stored properties on it. Even then, it’s still not meant to be
instantiated directly. Rather, it only defines requirements that concrete handlers
must fulfill.

3. The first concrete handler implements the handler protocol, and it’s stored
directly by the client. Upon receiving an event, it first attempts to handle it. If it’s
not able to do so, it passes the event on to its next handler.

Thereby, the client can treat all of the concrete handlers as if they were a single
instance. Under the hood, each concrete handler determines whether or not to handle
an event passed to it or pass it on to the next handler. This happens without the client
needing to know anything about the process!

If there aren’t any concrete handlers capable of handling the event, the last handler
simply returns nil, does nothing or throws an error depending on your requirements.

When should you use it?

Use this pattern whenever you have a group of related objects that handle similar
events but vary based on event type, attributes or anything else related to the event.

Concrete handlers may be different classes entirely or they may be the same class type
but different instances and configurations.

For example, you can use this pattern to implement a VendingMachine that accepts
coins:

• The VendingMachine itself would be the client and would accept coin input events.

• The handler protocol would require a handleCoinValidation(_:) method and a next

property.

• The concrete handlers would be coin validators. They would determine whether an
unknown coin was valid based on certain criteria, such as a coin’s weight and
diameter, and use this to create a known coin type, such as a Penny.

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Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the Starter directory, and then open
the ChainOfResponsibility page.

For this playground example, you’ll implement the VendingMachine mentioned above.
For simplicity, it will only accept U.S. pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. So don’t try
feeding it Canadian coins!

You’ll consider each coin’s diameter and weight to validate said coins. Here are the
official specifications per the United States Mint:

Ok, that’s all you need to know, so it’s time to make some money! Or rather, accept
some money — you’re creating a vending machine, after all.

Before creating the chain-of-responsibility specific classes, you first need to declare a
few models. Add the following right after Code Example:

import Foundation

// MARK: - Models
// 1
public class Coin {

// 2
public class var standardDiameter: Double {
return 0
}
public class var standardWeight: Double {
return 0
}

// 3

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public var centValue: Int { return 0 }

public final var dollarValue: Double { return Double(centValue) / 100 }

// 4
public final let diameter: Double
public final let weight: Double

// 5
public required init(diameter: Double, weight: Double) {
self.diameter = diameter
self.weight = weight
}

// 6
public convenience init() {
let diameter = type(of: self).standardDiameter
let weight = type(of: self).standardWeight
self.init(diameter: diameter, weight: weight)
}
}

Let’s go over this step by step:

1. You first create a new class for Coin, which you’ll use as the superclass for all coin
types.

2. You then declare standardDiameter and standardWeight as class properties. You’ll

override these within each specific coin subclass, and you’ll use them later when
you create the coin validators.

3. You declare centValue and dollarValue as computed properties. You’ll override

centValue to return the correct value for each specific coin. Since there’s always 100
cents to a dollar, you make dollarValue a final property.

4. You create diameter and weight as stored properties. As coins age, they get dinged
and worn down. Consequently, their diameters and weights tend to decrease slightly
over time. You’ll compare a coin’s diameter and weight against the standards later
when you create the coin validators.

5. You create a designated initializer that accepts a specific coin’s diameter and
weight. It’s important that this is a required initializer: You’ll use this to create
subclasses by calling it on a Coin.Type instance - i.e. a type of Coin.

6. You lastly create a convenience initializer. This creates a standard coin using
type(of: self) to get the standardDiameter and standardWeight. This way, you
won’t have to override this initializer for each specific coin subclass.

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Add the following code next:

extension Coin: CustomStringConvertible {

public var description: String {
return String(format:
"%@ {diameter: %0.3f, dollarValue: $%0.2f, weight: %0.3f}",
"\(type(of: self))", diameter, dollarValue, weight)
}
}

To inspect coins, you’ll print them to the console. Here, you make Coin conform to
CustomStringConvertible to give it a nice description that includes the coin’s type,
diameter, dollarValue and weight.

You next need to add concrete coin types. Add this code to do so:

public class Penny: Coin {

public override class var standardDiameter: Double {

return 0.75
}
public override class var standardWeight: Double {
return 2.5
}
public override var centValue: Int { return 1 }
}

public class Nickel: Coin {

public override class var standardDiameter: Double {

return 0.835
}
public override class var standardWeight: Double {
return 5.0
}
public override var centValue: Int { return 5 }
}

public class Dime: Coin {

public override class var standardDiameter: Double {
return 0.705
}
public override class var standardWeight: Double {
return 2.268
}
public override var centValue: Int { return 10 }
}

public class Quarter: Coin {

public override class var standardDiameter: Double {

return 0.955
}
public override class var standardWeight: Double {
return 5.670

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}
public override var centValue: Int { return 25 }
}

With the previous code, you create subclasses of Coin for Penny, Nickel, Dime and
Quarter using the coin specifications provided earlier.

Great! You’re now ready to add the chain-of-responsibility classes. Add the following:

// MARK: - HandlerProtocol
public protocol CoinHandlerProtocol {
var next: CoinHandlerProtocol? { get }
func handleCoinValidation(_ unknownCoin: Coin) -> Coin?
}

Here, you declare the handler protocol, which has requirements for
handleCoinValidation(_:) and a next property.

Add this code next:

// MARK: - Concrete Handler

// 1
public class CoinHandler {

// 2
public var next: CoinHandlerProtocol?
public let coinType: Coin.Type
public let diameterRange: ClosedRange<Double>
public let weightRange: ClosedRange<Double>

// 3
public init(coinType: Coin.Type,
diameterVariation: Double = 0.01,
weightVariation: Double = 0.05) {
self.coinType = coinType

let standardDiameter = coinType.standardDiameter

self.diameterRange =
(1-diameterVariation)*standardDiameter ...
(1+diameterVariation)*standardDiameter

let standardWeight = coinType.standardWeight

self.weightRange =
(1-weightVariation)*standardWeight ...
(1+weightVariation)*standardWeight
}
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You declare CoinHandler, which will be the concrete handler.

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2. You declare several properties:

• next will hold onto the next CoinHandler.

• coinType will be the specific Coin this instance will create. Consequently, you won’t
need to create specific coin validators for Penny, Nickel, Dime and Quarter.

• diameterRange and weightRange will be the valid range for this specific coin.

3. You lastly create an designated initializer, init(coinType:

diameterVariation:weightVariation). Within this, you set self.coinType to
coinType, and you use standardDiameter and standardWeight to create
self.diameterRange and self.weightRange.

You also need to make CoinHandler conform to CoinHandlerProtocol:

extension CoinHandler: CoinHandlerProtocol {

// 1
public func handleCoinValidation(_ unknownCoin: Coin) ->
Coin? {
guard let coin = createCoin(from: unknownCoin) else {
return next?.handleCoinValidation(unknownCoin)
}
return coin
}

// 2
private func createCoin(from unknownCoin: Coin) -> Coin? {
print("Attempt to create \(coinType)")
guard diameterRange.contains(unknownCoin.diameter) else {
print("Invalid diameter")
return nil
}
guard weightRange.contains(unknownCoin.weight) else {
print("Invalid weight")
return nil
}
let coin = coinType.init(diameter: unknownCoin.diameter,
weight: unknownCoin.weight)
print("Created \(coin)")
return coin
}
}

Let’s go over these two methods:

1. Within handleCoinValidation(_:), you first attempt to create a Coin via

createCoin(from:) that is defined after this method. If you can’t create a Coin, you
give the next handler a chance to attempt to create one.

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2. Within createCoin(from:), you validate that the passed-in unknownCoin actually

meets the requirements to create the specific coin given by coinType. Namely, the
unknownCoin must have a diameter that falls within the diameterRange and
weightRange.

If it doesn’t, you print an error message and return nil. If it does, you call
coinType.init(diameter:weight:) passing the values from unknownCoin to create a
new instance of the coinType. Pretty cool how you can use a required initializer like
that, right?

You’ve got just one more class to go! Add the following:

// MARK: - Client
// 1
public class VendingMachine {

// 2
public let coinHandler: CoinHandler
public var coins: [Coin] = []

// 3
public init(coinHandler: CoinHandler) {
self.coinHandler = coinHandler
}
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You create a new class for VendingMachine, which will act as the client.

2. This has just two properties: coinHandler and coins. VendingMachine doesn’t need
to know that its coinHandler is actually a chain of handlers, but instead it simply
treats this as a single object. You’ll use coins to hold onto all of the valid, accepted
coins.

3. The initializer is also very simple: You simply accept a passed-in coinHandler
instance. VendingMachine doesn’t need to how a CoinHandler is set up, as it simply
uses it.

You also need a method to actually accept coins. Add this next code right before the
closing class curly brace for VendingMachine:

public func insertCoin(_ unknownCoin: Coin) {

guard let coin = coinHandler.handleCoinValidation(unknownCoin)
else {
print("Coin rejected: \(unknownCoin)")
return
}
print("Coin Accepted: \(coin)")

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coins.append(coin)

let dollarValue = coins.reduce(0, { $0 + $1.dollarValue })

print("Coins Total Value: $\(dollarValue)")

let weight = coins.reduce(0, { $0 + $1.weight })

print("Coins Total Weight: \(weight) g")
print("")
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You first attempt to create a Coin by passing an unknownCoin to coinHandler. If a

valid coin isn’t created, you print out a message indicating that the coin was
rejected.

2. If a valid Coin is created, you print a success message and append it to coins.

3. You then get the dollarValue for all of the coins and print this.

4. You lastly get the weight for all of the coins and print this, too.

You've created a vending machine — But you still need to try it out!

Add this code to the end of the playground:

// MARK: - Example
// 1
let pennyHandler = CoinHandler(coinType: Penny.self)
let nickleHandler = CoinHandler(coinType: Nickel.self)
let dimeHandler = CoinHandler(coinType: Dime.self)
let quarterHandler = CoinHandler(coinType: Quarter.self)

// 2
pennyHandler.next = nickleHandler
nickleHandler.next = dimeHandler
dimeHandler.next = quarterHandler

// 3
let vendingMachine = VendingMachine(coinHandler: pennyHandler)

Let’s go over this:

1. Before you can instantiate a VendingMachine, you must first set up the coinHandler
objects for it. You do so by creating instances of CoinHandler for pennyHandler,
nickleHandler, dimeHandler and quarterHandler.

2. You then hook up the next properties for the handlers. In this case, pennyHandler
will be the first handler, followed by nickleHandler, dimeHandler and lastly
quarterHandler in the chain. Since there aren’t any other handlers after
quarterHandler, you leave its next set to nil.

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3. You lastly create vendingMachine by passing pennyHandler as the coinHandler.

You can now insert coins in the vendingMachine! Add the following to insert a standard
Penny:

let penny = Penny()

vendingMachine.insertCoin(penny)

You should see the following printed to the console:

Attempt to create Penny

Created Penny {diameter: 0.750,
dollarValue: $0.01, weight: 2.500}
Accepted Coin: Penny {diameter: 0.750,
dollarValue: $0.01, weight: 2.500}
Coins Total Value: $0.01
Coins Total Weight: 2.5 g

Awesome — the penny was handled correctly. However, this one was easy: It was a
standard penny, after all!

Add the following code next to create an unknown Coin matching the criteria for a
Quarter:

let quarter = Coin(diameter: Quarter.standardDiameter,

weight: Quarter.standardWeight)
vendingMachine.insertCoin(quarter)

You should then see this in the console:

Attempt to create Penny

Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Nickel
Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Dime
Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Quarter
Created Quarter {diameter: 0.955,
dollarValue: $0.25, weight: 5.670}
Accepted Coin: Quarter {diameter: 0.955,
dollarValue: $0.25, weight: 5.670}
Coins Total Value: $0.26
Coins Total Weight: 8.17 g

Great — the quarter was also handled correctly! Notice the print statements for penny,
nickel and dime, too? This is expected behavior: The unknown coin was passed from
CoinHandler to CoinHandler until, finally, the last one was able to create a Quarter from
it.

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Lastly, add the following to insert an invalid coin:

let invalidDime = Coin(diameter: Quarter.standardDiameter,

weight: Dime.standardWeight)
vendingMachine.insertCoin(invalidDime)

You should then see this printed to the console:

Attempt to create Penny

Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Nickel
Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Dime
Invalid diameter
Attempt to create Quarter
Invalid weight
Coin rejected: Coin {diameter: 0.955,
dollarValue: $0.00, weight: 2.268}

Fantastic! VendingMachine rejected that invalid coin just as it should.

What should you be careful about?

The chain-of-responsibility pattern works best for handlers that can determine very
quickly whether or not to handle an event. Be careful about creating one or more
handlers that are slow to pass an event to the next handler. You also need to consider
what happens if an event can’t be handled. What if you return nil, throw an error or
something else? You should identify this upfront, so you can plan your system
appropriately.

You should also consider whether or not an event needs to be processed by more than
one handler. As a variation on this pattern, you can forward the same event to all
handlers, instead of stopping at the first one that can handle it, and return an array of
response objects.

Tutorial project
You’ll build an app called RWSecret in this chapter. This app allows users to decrypt
secret messages by attempting several known passwords provided by the user.

You’ll use two open-source libraries in this app: SwiftKeychainWrapper (http://bit.ly/

SwiftKeychainWrapper) to store passwords within the iOS keychain, and RNCryptor
(http://bit.ly/RNCryptor) to perform AES, or Advanced Encryption Standard,
decryption.

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It’s OK if you’re not familiar with the iOS keychain or AES decryption — these libraries
do the heavy lifting for you! Your task will be to set up a handler chain to perform
decryption.

Open Finder and navigate to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter.
Then, open Starter\RWSecret\RWSecret.xcworkspace (not the .xcodeproj file) in
Xcode.

This app uses CocoaPods to pull in the open-source libraries. Everything has already
been included for you, so you don’t need to do pod install. You simply need to use
the .xcworkspace instead of the .xcodeproj file.

Build and run. You’ll see the Decrypt screen:

If you Tap to decrypt, you’ll see this printed to the console:

Decryption failed!

What’s up with that?

While the view has already been set up to display secret messages, the app doesn’t
know how to decrypt them! Before you can add this functionality, you first need to
know a bit about how the app works.

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Open SecretMessage.swift, and you’ll see this is a simple model with two properties,
encrypted and decrypted:

• encrypted holds onto to the encrypted form of the message. This is set via
init(encrypted:), so it will always have a value.

• decrypted is set whenever the message is decrypted. This is initially set to nil, as
SecretMessage doesn’t know how to perform decryption.

Next, open DecryptViewController.swift. This is the view controller that’s shown

whenever the app is launched. It uses a tableView to display SecretMessages. Scroll
down to tableView(_:didSelectRowAt:) to see what happens when a cell is tapped.

Specifically, look for this line:

secretMessage.decrypted = passwordClient.decrypt(secretMessage.encrypted)

passwordClient acts as the client for handling decryption requests, but seemingly, this
method must always be returning nil.

Open PasswordClient.swift, scroll down to decrypt(_:), and you’ll find there’s a TODO
comment there. Ah ha! This is what you need to implement. Specifically, you need to
set up a chain of decryption handlers to perform decryption.

To do so, create a new file called DecryptionHandlerProtocol.swift within the

PasswordClient group and replace its contents with the following:

import Foundation

public protocol DecryptionHandlerProtocol {

var next: DecryptionHandlerProtocol? { get }
func decrypt(data encryptedData: Data) -> String?
}

DecryptionHandlerProtocol will act as the handler protocol. It has two requirements:

next to hold onto the next decryption handler, and decrypt(data:) to perform
decryption.

Create another new file called DecryptionHandler.swift within the PasswordClient

group and replace its contents with the following:

import RNCryptor

public class DecryptionHandler {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public var next: DecryptionHandlerProtocol?
public let password: String

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public init(password: String) {

self.password = password
}
}

DecryptionHandler will act as a concrete

handler. This has two properties: next per
the DecryptionHandlerProtocol requirement, and password to hold onto the decryption
password to use.

You also need to make DecryptionHandler conform to DecryptionHandler Protocol.

Add the following right after the previous code:

extension DecryptionHandler: DecryptionHandlerProtocol {

public func decrypt(data encryptedData: Data) -> String? {

guard let data = try? RNCryptor.decrypt(data: encryptedData,
withPassword: password),
let text = String(data: data, encoding: .utf8) else {
return next?.decrypt(data: encryptedData)
}
return text
}
}

This method accepts encryptedData and calls RNCryptor.decrypt(data:withPassword:)

to attempt the decryption. If it’s successful, you return the resulting text. Otherwise, it
passes the provided encryptedData on to the next handler to attempt decryption.

You’re making great progress! You next need to add a reference to the
DecryptionHandlerProtocol on the client. Open PasswordClient.swift and add the
following property, right after the others:

private var decryptionHandler: DecryptionHandlerProtocol?

Next, scroll down to setupDecryptionHandler(). This method is called in two places: in

didSet for passwords, which is called whenever a new password is added or removed,
and in init() after passwords have been loaded from the keychain. Replace the TODO
comment within this method with the following:

// 1
guard passwords.count > 0 else {
decryptionHandler = nil
return
}

// 2
var current = DecryptionHandler(password: passwords.first!)
decryptionHandler = current

// 3

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for i in 1 ..< passwords.count {

let next = DecryptionHandler(password: passwords[i])
current.next = next
current = next
}

Here’s how this works step by step:

1. You first ensure that passwords isn’t empty. Otherwise, you set decryptionHandler
to nil.

2. You create a DecryptionHandler for the first password, and you set this to both
current and decryptionHandler.

3. You lastly iterate through the remaining passwords. You create a DecryptionHandler
for each, which you set as current.next and then update current to next as well. In
this manner, you ultimately set up a chain of DecryptionHandler objects.

You lastly need to implement decrypt(_:). Replace the contents of it with the
following:

guard let data = Data(base64Encoded: base64EncodedString),

let value = decryptionHandler?.decrypt(data: data) else {
return nil
}
return value

Since decrypt(_:) takes a String, you first attempt to convert this into base-64
encoded data and then pass this to the decryptionHandler for decryption. If this is
successful, you return the resulting decrypted value. Otherwise, you return nil.

Great job — that takes care of the chain-of-responsibility implementation! Build and
run. Tap to decrypt on the first cell. And then... you still see a Decryption failed! in
the console!? What gives?

Remember how RWSecret uses the keychain to hold onto passwords? Yep, you first need
to add the correct passwords. Tap on the Passwords button in the top right corner.
Then, type password into the text field and press add.

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Likewise, add passwords for ray and raywender.

Tap < Decrypt to return to the decryption screen and then Tap to Decrypt each cell to
reveal the secret messages!

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Key points
You learned about the chain-of-responsibility pattern in this chapter. Here are its key
points:

• The chain-of-responsibility pattern allows an event to be processed by one of many

handlers. It involves three types: a client, handler protocol, and concrete handlers.

• The client accepts events and passes them onto its handler protocol instance; the
handler protocol defines required methods and properties each concrete handler
much implement; and each concrete handler can accept an event and in turn either
handle it or pass it onto the next handler.

• This pattern thereby defines a group of related handlers, which vary based on the
type of event each can handle. If you need to handle new types of events, you simply
create a new concrete handler.

Where to go from here?

Using the chain-of-responsibility pattern, you created a secret message app that
decrypts messages using passwords provided by the user. There’s still a lot of
functionality that you can add to RWSecret:

• You can add the ability to input and encrypt secret messages, instead of just
decrypting them.

• You can add the capability to send secret messages to other users.

• You can support several types of decryption instead of only AES.

Each of these is possible using the existing patterns that you’ve already learned from
this book. Feel free to continue experimenting with RWSecret as much as you like.

When you're ready, continue onto the next chapter to learn about the coordinator
design pattern.

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23 Chapter 23: Coordinator
Pattern
By Joshua Greene

The coordinator pattern is a structural design pattern for organizing flow logic between
view controllers. It involves the following components:

1. The coordinator is a protocol that defines the methods and properties all concrete
coordinators must implement. Specifically, it defines relationship properties,
children and router. It also defines presentation methods, present and dismiss.

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By holding onto coordinator protocols, instead of onto concrete coordinators

directly, you can decouple a parent coordinator and its child coordinators. This also
enables a parent coordinator to hold onto various concrete child coordinators in a
single property, children.

Likewise, by holding onto a router protocol instead of a concrete router directly, you
can decouple the coordinator and its router.

2. The concrete coordinator implements the coordinator protocol. It knows how to

create concrete view controllers and the order in which view controllers should be
displayed.

3. The router is a protocol that defines methods all concrete routers must implement.
Specifically, it defines present and dismiss methods for showing and dismissing
view controllers.

4. The concrete router knows how to present view controllers, but it doesn’t know
exactly what is being presented or which view controller will be presented next.
Instead, the coordinator tells the router which view controller to present.

5. The concrete view controllers are typical UIViewController subclasses found in

MVC. However, they don’t know about other view controllers. Instead, they delegate
to the coordinator whenever a transition needs to performed.

This pattern can be adopted for only part of an app, or it can be used as an
“architectural pattern” to define the structure of an entire app. You’ll see both of these
at work in this chapter: In the Playground example, you’ll call a coordinator from an
existing view controller, and in the Tutorial Project, you’ll adopt this pattern across
the entire app.

When should you use it?

Use this pattern to decouple view controllers from one another. The only component
that knows about view controllers directly is the coordinator. Consequently, view
controllers are much more reusable: If you want to create a new flow within your app,
you simply create a new coordinator!

Playground example
Open AdvancedDesignPatterns.xcworkspace in the starter directory, and then open
the Coordinator page.

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For this playground example, you’ll create a step-by-step instruction flow. You could
use this for any instructions, such as app set up, first-time-help tutorials or any other
step-by-step flow.

To keep the example simple and focused on the design pattern, you’ll create a “How to
Code” flow that will show a set of view controllers with text only.

Hold down Option and left-click the arrow next to the Coordinator page to expand all
of its subfolders. You’ll see several folders have already been added for you:

Controllers contains all of the concrete view controllers. These are simple, vanilla view
controllers and have already been implemented for you.

Coordinators contains two files: Coordinator.swift and

HowToCodeCoordinator.swift. If you open each, you’ll see they are currently empty.

Likewise, Routers contains two files: NavigationRouter.swift and Router.swift. Both

of which are also currently empty.

These types are what you need to implement!

Creating the Router Protocol

First, open Router.swift. This is where you’ll implement the Router protocol.

Add the following code to this file:

import UIKit

public protocol Router: class {

// 1
func present(_ viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool)
func present(_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (()->Void)?)
// 2
func dismiss(animated: Bool)
}

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extension Router {
// 3
public func present(_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool) {
present(viewController, animated: animated, onDismissed: nil)
}
}

You're declaring a protocol called Router here. Here’s what this protocol defines:

1. You first define two present methods. The only difference is one takes an
onDismissed closure, and the other doesn’t. If provided, concrete routers will
execute the onDismissed whenever a view controller is dismissed, for example via a
“pop“ action in the case of a concrete router that uses a UINavigationController.

2. You also declare dismiss(animated:). This will dismiss the entire router. Depending
on the concrete router, this may result in popping to a root view controller, calling
dismiss on a parentViewController or whatever action is necessary per the
concrete router’s implementation.

3. You lastly define a default implementation for present(_:animated:). This simply

calls the other present by passing nil for onDismissed.

You may be wondering, “Don’t I need a method to dismiss individual view controllers?”
Surprisingly, you may not need one! Neither this playground example nor the tutorial
project require it. If you actually do need this in your own project, feel free to declare
one!

Creating the Concrete Router

You next need to implement the Concrete Router. Open NavigationRouter.swift, and
add the following code to it:

import UIKit

// 1
public class NavigationRouter: NSObject {

// 2
private let navigationController: UINavigationController
private let routerRootController: UIViewController?
private var onDismissForViewController:
[UIViewController: (() -> Void)] = [:]

// 3
public init(navigationController: UINavigationController) {
self.navigationController = navigationController
self.routerRootController =
navigationController.viewControllers.first

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super.init()
}
}

Let’s go over this:

1. You declare NavigationRouter as a subclass of NSObject. This is required because

you’ll later make this conform to UINavigationControllerDelegate.

2. You then create these instance properties:

• navigationController will be used to push and pop view controllers.

• routerRootController will be set to the last view controller on the

navigationController. You’ll use this later to dismiss the router by popping to this.

• onDismissForViewController is a mapping from UIViewController to on-dismiss

closures. You’ll use this later to perform an on-dismiss actions whenever view
controllers are popped.

3. You lastly create an initializer that takes a navigationController, and you set the
navigationController and routerRootController from it.

You'll notice that this doesn't implement the Router protocol yet. So let's do that!

Add the following code next, right after the class closing brace:

// MARK: - Router
extension NavigationRouter: Router {

// 1
public func present(_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)?) {
onDismissForViewController[viewController] = onDismissed
navigationController.pushViewController(viewController,
animated: animated)
}

// 2
public func dismiss(animated: Bool) {
guard let routerRootController = routerRootController else {
navigationController.popToRootViewController(
animated: animated)
return
}
performOnDismissed(for: routerRootController)
navigationController.popToViewController(
routerRootController,
animated: animated)
}

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// 3
private func performOnDismissed(for
viewController: UIViewController) {

guard let onDismiss =

onDismissForViewController[viewController] else {
return
}
onDismiss()
onDismissForViewController[viewController] = nil
}
}

This makes NavigationRouter conform to Router:

1. Within present(_:animated:onDismissed:), you set the onDismissed closure for the

given viewController and then push the view controller onto the
navigationController to show it.

2. Within dismiss(animated:), you verify that routerRootController is set. If not, you

simply call popToRootViewController(animated:) on the navigationController.
Otherwise, you call performOnDismissed(for:) to perform the on-dismiss action
and then pass the routerRootController into popToViewController(_:animated:)
on the navigationController.

3. Within performOnDismiss(for:), you guard that there’s an onDismiss for the given
viewController. If not, you simply return early. Otherwise, you call onDismiss and
remove it from onDismissForViewController.

The last thing you need to do here is make NavigationRouter conform to

UINavigationController, so you can call the on-dismiss action if the user presses the
back button. Add the following code right after the last extension’s closing curly brace:

// MARK: - UINavigationControllerDelegate
extension NavigationRouter: UINavigationControllerDelegate {

public func navigationController(

_ navigationController: UINavigationController,
didShow viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool) {

guard let dismissedViewController =

navigationController.transitionCoordinator?
.viewController(forKey: .from),
!navigationController.viewControllers
.contains(dismissedViewController) else {
return
}
performOnDismissed(for: dismissedViewController)
}
}

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Inside navigationController(_:didShow:animated:), you get the from view controller

from the navigationController.transitionCoordinator and verify it’s not contained
within navigationController.viewControllers. This indicates that the view controller
was popped, and in response, you call performOnDismissed to do the on-dismiss action
for the given view controller.

Of course, you also need to actually set NavigationRouter as the delegate for the
navigationController. Add the following to the end of init(navigationController:):

navigationController.delegate = self

With this, your NavigationRouter is complete!

Creating the Coordinator

Your next task is to create the Coordinator protocol. Open Coordinator.swift and add
the following to it:

public protocol Coordinator: class {

// 1
var children: [Coordinator] { get set }
var router: Router { get }

// 2
func present(animated: Bool, onDismissed: (() -> Void)?)
func dismiss(animated: Bool)
func presentChild(_ child: Coordinator,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)?)
}

Here’s what this does:

1. You declare relationship properties for children and router. You’ll use these
properties to provide default implementations within an extension on Coordinator
next.

2. You also declare required methods for present, dismiss and presentChild.

You can provide reasonable default implementations for both dismiss and
presentChild. Add the following code next to do so:

extension Coordinator {

// 1
public func dismiss(animated: Bool) {
router.dismiss(animated: true)
}

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// 2
public func presentChild(_ child: Coordinator,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)? = nil) {
children.append(child)
child.present(animated: animated, onDismissed: { [weak self, weak
child] in
guard let self = self, let child = child else { return }
self.removeChild(child)
onDismissed?()
})
}

private func removeChild(_ child: Coordinator) {

guard let index = children.firstIndex(where: { $0 === child })
else {
return
}
children.remove(at: index)
}
}

1. To dismiss a coordinator, you simply call dismiss on its router. This works because
whoever presented the coordinator is responsible for passing an onDismiss closure
to do any required teardown, which will be called by the router automatically.
Remember how you wrote all that logic within NavigationRouter for handling
popping and dismissing? This is why you did that!

2. Within presentChild, you simply append the given child to children, and then call
child.present. You also take care of removing the child by calling removeChild(_:)
within the child’s onDismissed action, and lastly, you call the provided onDismissed
passed into the method itself.

Just like the Router didn’t declare a dismiss method for individual view controllers, this
Coordinator doesn’t declare a dismiss method for child coordinators. The reasoning is
the same: the examples in this chapter don’t require it! Of course, feel free to add them,
if necessary, to your application.

Creating the Concrete Coordinator

The last type you need to create is the Concrete Coordinator. Open
HowToCodeCoordinator.swift and add the following code, ignoring any compiler
errors you get for now:

import UIKit

public class HowToCodeCoordinator: Coordinator {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

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// 1
public var children: [Coordinator] = []
public let router: Router

// 2
private lazy var stepViewControllers = [
StepViewController.instantiate(
delegate: self,
buttonColor: UIColor(red: 0.96, green: 0, blue: 0.11,
alpha: 1),
text: "When I wake up, well, I'm sure I'm gonna be\n\n" +
"I'm gonna be the one writin' code for you",
title: "I wake up"),

StepViewController.instantiate(
delegate: self,
buttonColor: UIColor(red: 0.93, green: 0.51, blue: 0.07,
alpha: 1),
text: "When I go out, well, I'm sure I'm gonna be\n\n" +
"I'm gonna be the one thinkin' bout code for you",
title: "I go out"),

StepViewController.instantiate(
delegate: self,
buttonColor: UIColor(red: 0.23, green: 0.72, blue: 0.11,
alpha: 1),
text: "Cause' I would code five hundred lines\n\n" +
"And I would code five hundred more",
title: "500 lines"),

StepViewController.instantiate(
delegate: self,
buttonColor: UIColor(red: 0.18, green: 0.29, blue: 0.80,
alpha: 1),
text: "To be the one that wrote a thousand lines\n\n" +
"To get this code shipped out the door!",
title: "Ship it!")
]

// 3
private lazy var startOverViewController =
StartOverViewController.instantiate(delegate: self)

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 4
public init(router: Router) {
self.router = router
}

// MARK: - Coordinator
// 5
public func present(animated: Bool, onDismissed: (() -> Void)?) {
let viewController = stepViewControllers.first!
router.present(viewController,
animated: animated,
onDismissed: onDismissed)
}
}

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Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You declare properties for children and router, which are required to conform to
Coordinator and Router respectively.

2. You then create an array called stepViewControllers, which you set by instantiating
several StepViewController objects. This is a simple view controller that displays a
button with a multiline label.

You set the view controllers’ texts to parody song lyrics of “I’m Gonna Be (500
miles)” by the Proclaimers. Google it if you don’t know it. Be sure to sing these
lyrics aloud to this tune, especially if others are nearby — they’ll love it..! Well,
depending on your singing skill, maybe it’s best if you sing alone!

3. You declare a property for startOverViewController. This will be the last view
controller displayed and will simply show a button to “start over.”

4. You next create a designated initializer that accepts and sets the router.

5. Lastly, you implement present(animated:, onDismissed:), which is required by

Coordinator to start the flow.

You next need to make HowToCodeCoordinator conform to

StepViewControllerDelegate. Add the following code after the class closing brace;
continue ignoring the other compiler errors for now:

// MARK: - StepViewControllerDelegate
extension HowToCodeCoordinator: StepViewControllerDelegate {

public func stepViewControllerDidPressNext(_ controller:

StepViewController) {
if let viewController =
stepViewController(after: controller) {
router.present(viewController, animated: true)
} else {
router.present(startOverViewController, animated: true)
}
}

private func stepViewController(after controller: StepViewController) -

> StepViewController? {
guard let index = stepViewControllers
.firstIndex(where: { $0 === controller }),
index < stepViewControllers.count - 1 else { return nil }
return stepViewControllers[index + 1]
}
}

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Within stepViewControllerDidPressNext(_:), you first attempt to get the next

StepViewController, which is returned by stepViewController(after:) as long as this
isn’t the last one. You then pass this to router.present(_:, animated): to show it.

If there isn’t a next StepViewController, you pass startOverViewController to

router.present(_:, animated:) instead.

To resolve the remaining compiler errors, you need to make HowToCodeCoordinator

conform to StartOverViewControllerDelegate. Add this code next to do so:

// MARK: - StartOverViewControllerDelegate
extension HowToCodeCoordinator:
StartOverViewControllerDelegate {

public func startOverViewControllerDidPressStartOver(

_ controller: StartOverViewController) {
router.dismiss(animated: true)
}
}

Whenever startOverViewControllerDidPressStartOver(_:) is called, you call

router.dismiss to end the flow. Ultimately, this will result in returning to the first view
controller that initiated the flow, and hence, the user can start it again.

Trying out the playground example

You’ve created all of the components, and you’re ready to put them into action!

Open the Coordinator page, and add the following right below Code Example:

import PlaygroundSupport
import UIKit

// 1
let homeViewController = HomeViewController.instantiate()
let navigationController = UINavigationController(rootViewController:
homeViewController)

// 2
let router = NavigationRouter(navigationController: navigationController)
let coordinator = HowToCodeCoordinator(router: router)

// 3
homeViewController.onButtonPressed = { [weak coordinator] in
coordinator?.present(animated: true, onDismissed: nil)
}

// 4
PlaygroundPage.current.liveView = navigationController

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Let’s go over this:

1. You first create homeViewController, and then use this to create

navigationController. This will be the "home" screen. If this were actually an iOS
app instead, this would be the first screen shown whenever the app is launched.

2. You then create the router using the navigationController, and in turn, create the
coordinator using the router.

3. If you open HomeViewController.swift, you’ll see it has a single button that

ultimately calls its onButtonPressed closure. You here set
homeViewController.onButtonPressed to tell the coordinator to present, which
will start its flow.

4. You lastly set the PlaygroundPage.current.liveView to the navigationController,

which tells Xcode to display the navigationController within the assistant editor.

Select View ▸ Assistant Editor ▸ Show Assistant Editor to see this in action. If you
see code instead of a rendered view, press View ▸ Assistant Editor ▸ Reset Editor to
reset the assistant editor.

Tap on How to Code to start the flow. Tap each of the buttons until you get to Start
Over. Once you tap this, the coordinator will be dismissed, and you’ll see How to Code
again.

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What should you be careful about?

Make sure you handle going-back functionality when using this pattern. Specifically,
make sure you provide any required teardown code passed into onDismiss on the
coordinator’s present(animated: onDismiss:).

For very simple apps, the Coordinator pattern may seem like overkill. You’ll be required
to create many additional classes upfront; namely, the concrete coordinator and
routers. For long-term or complex apps, the coordinator pattern can help you provide
needed structure and increase view controllers’ reusability.

Tutorial project
You’ll build an app called RayPets in this chapter. This is a “pet” project by Ray: an
exclusive pets-only clinic for savvy iOS users.

Open Finder and navigate to where you downloaded the resources for this chapter.
Then, open starter ▸ RayPets ▸ RayPets.xcodeproj in Xcode.

Build and run, and you’ll see this home screen:

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If you tap on Schedule Visit, however, nothing happens!

Before investigating why, take a look at the file hierarchy. In particular, you’ll find
there’s a Screens group, which contains view controllers and views that have been
implemented already.

These are your typical view controllers found in MVC. However, per the coordinator
pattern, they don’t know about view controller transitions. Instead, each informs its
delegate whenever a transition is required.

Lastly, take a look at Screens ▸ Protocols ▸ StoryboardInstantiable.swift. Each view

controller within RayPets conforms to this protocol. It makes instantiating a view
controller from a storyboard easier. In particular, it provides a static method called
instanceFromStoryboard that returns Self to create a view controller from its
storyboard.

Next, go to Screens ▸ Home ▸ Controllers ▸ HomeViewController.swift. You’ll see an

IBAction for didPressScheduleAppointment, which is called in response to tapping
Schedule Visit. This in turn calls homeViewControllerDidPressScheduleAppointment on
its delegate.

However, this part of the app hasn’t been implemented yet. To do so, you need to
implement a new concrete coordinator and router.

In the file hierarchy, you’ll also see there’s already a group for Coordinators. Within
this, you’ll find Coordinator.swift has already been copied from the playground
example.

You’ll also see a Routers group. This contains Router.swift that has likewise been
copied from the playground example.

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Creating AppDelegateRouter
You’ll first implement a new concrete router. Within the Routers group, create a new
file called AppDelegateRouter.swift, and replace its contents with the following:

import UIKit

public class AppDelegateRouter: Router {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public let window: UIWindow

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(window: UIWindow) {
self.window = window
}

// MARK: - Router
public func present(_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (()->Void)?) {
window.rootViewController = viewController
window.makeKeyAndVisible()
}

public func dismiss(animated: Bool) {

// don't do anything
}
}

This router is intended to hold onto the window from the AppDelegate.

Within present(_:, animated:, onDismissed:), you simply set the

window.rootViewController and call window.makeKeyAndVisible to show the window.

This router will be held onto by the AppDelegate directly and isn't meant to be
dismissible. Thereby, you simply ignore calls to dismiss(animated:).

Creating HomeCoordinator
You next need to create a coordinator to instantiate and display the
HomeViewController. Within the Coordinators group, create a new file named
HomeCoordinator.swift. Replace its contents with the following, ignoring the
compiler error for now:

import UIKit

public class HomeCoordinator: Coordinator {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public var children: [Coordinator] = []
public let router: Router

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// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(router: Router) {
self.router = router
}

// MARK: - Instance Methods

public func present(animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)?) {
let viewController = HomeViewController.instantiate(delegate: self)
router.present(viewController,
animated: animated,
onDismissed: onDismissed)
}
}

This coordinator is pretty simple. You create properties for children and router, which
are required by the Coordinator protocol, and a simple initializer that sets the router.

Within present(animated:, onDismissed:), you instantiate HomeViewController by

calling a convenience constructor method, instantiate(delegate:). You then pass this
into router.present(_:, animated: onDismissed:) to show it.

To resolve the compiler error, you need to make HomeCoordinator conform to

HomeViewControllerDelegate. Add the following after the closing class brace:

// MARK: - HomeViewControllerDelegate
extension HomeCoordinator: HomeViewControllerDelegate {

public func homeViewControllerDidPressScheduleAppointment(

_ viewController: HomeViewController) {
// TODO: - Write this
}
}

You’ve simply stubbed out this method for now.

Using HomeCoordinator
You also need to actually use HomeCoordinator. To do so, open AppDelegate.Swift and
replace its contents with the following:

import UIKit

@UIApplicationMain
public class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 1
public lazy var coordinator = HomeCoordinator(router: router)
public lazy var router = AppDelegateRouter(window: window!)
public lazy var window: UIWindow? =
UIWindow(frame: UIScreen.main.bounds)

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// MARK: - Application Lifecycle

// 2
public func application(
_ application: UIApplication,
didFinishLaunchingWithOptions
launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?)
-> Bool {
coordinator.present(animated: true, onDismissed: nil)
return true
}
}

You first create lazy properties for coordinator, router, and window. Then within
application(_: didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:), you call coordinator.present to
start the HomeCoordinator flow.

Build and run, and you’ll see the application displays the HomeViewController, just at
did before. However, you’re now set up to implement the coordinator pattern across the
entire app!

In particular, you’ll next focus on implementing a new coordinator for scheduling a pet
appointment, in response to pressing Schedule Visit.

Creating PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator
Open Models ▸ PetAppointment.swift, and you’ll see a model and related builder has
already been defined: PetAppointment and PetAppointmentBuilder.

You’ll create a new coordinator for the purpose of collecting PetAppointmentBuilder

inputs from the user. Create a new file called
PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator.swift in the Coordinators group, and replace its
contents with the following, ignoring the compiler error for now:

import UIKit

public class PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator: Coordinator {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

public let builder = PetAppointmentBuilder()
public var children: [Coordinator] = []
public let router: Router

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

public init(router: Router) {
self.router = router
}

// MARK: - Instance Methods

public func present(animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)?) {
let viewController =

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SelectVisitTypeViewController.instantiate(delegate: self)
router.present(viewController,
animated: animated,
onDismissed: onDismissed)
}
}

PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator has a property for builder, which you’ll use to set

inputs from the user, and required properties for children and router, per the
Coordinator protocol.

Within present(animated:onDismissed:), you instantiate a

SelectVisitTypeViewController via instantiate(delegate:) and then pass this to
router.present(_:animated:onDismissed).

Sounds familiar, right? This is very similar to HomeCoordinator, and it’s a recurring
pattern you’ll see using coordinators: you instantiate a view controller, pass it to the
router to present it and receive feedback via delegate callbacks.

Thereby, you need to make HomeCoordinator conform to

SelectVisitTypeViewControllerDelegate. Add the following after the closing class
curly brace to do so, again ignoring compiler errors for now:

// MARK: - SelectVisitTypeViewControllerDelegate
extension PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator:
SelectVisitTypeViewControllerDelegate {

public func selectVisitTypeViewController(

_ controller: SelectVisitTypeViewController,
didSelect visitType: VisitType) {

// 1
builder.visitType = visitType

// 2
switch visitType {
case .well:
// 3
presentNoAppointmentViewController()
case .sick:
// 4
presentSelectPainLevelCoordinator()
}
}

private func presentNoAppointmentViewController() {

let viewController =
NoAppointmentRequiredViewController.instantiate(
delegate: self)
router.present(viewController, animated: true)
}

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private func presentSelectPainLevelCoordinator() {

let viewController =
SelectPainLevelViewController.instantiate(delegate: self)
router.present(viewController, animated: true)
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. Within selectVisitTypeViewController(_:didSelect:), you first set

builder.visitType.

2. You then switch on the selected visitType.

3. If the visitType is well, you call presentNoAppointmentViewController() to show a

NoAppointmentRequiredViewController.

4. If it is sick, you call presentSelectPainLevelCoordinator() to show a

SelectPainLevelViewController.

Both NoAppointmentRequiredViewController and SelectPainLevelViewController each

require their own delegate, but PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator doesn’t conform to
their delegate protocols yet.

Add the following code next to make PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator conform to

SelectPainLevelViewControllerDelegate:

// MARK: - SelectPainLevelViewControllerDelegate
extension PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator:
SelectPainLevelViewControllerDelegate {

public func selectPainLevelViewController(

_ controller: SelectPainLevelViewController,
didSelect painLevel: PainLevel) {

// 1
builder.painLevel = painLevel

// 2
switch painLevel {

// 3
case .none, .little:
presentFakingItViewController()

// 4
case .moderate, .severe, .worstPossible:
presentNoAppointmentViewController()
}
}

private func presentFakingItViewController() {

let viewController =

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FakingItViewController.instantiate(delegate: self)
router.present(viewController, animated: true)
}
}

This parallels how you handled the previous delegate interaction:

1. Within selectPainLevelViewController(_:didSelect:), you first set the

builder.painLevel.

2. You then switch on the selected painLevel.

3. If the case matches none or little, you call presentFakingItViewController() to

show a FakingItViewController.

4. If the case matches moderate, severe or worstPossible, you can

presentNoAppointmentViewController() to show a
NoAppointmentRequiredViewController.

As a consequence, you need to implement yet another delegate protocol:

FakingItViewControllerDelegate. Fortunately, this one is pretty easy. Add the
following code next for this:

// MARK: - FakingItViewControllerDelegate
extension PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator:
FakingItViewControllerDelegate {

public func fakingItViewControllerPressedIsFake(

_ controller: FakingItViewController) {
router.dismiss(animated: true)
}

public func fakingItViewControllerPressedNotFake(

_ controller: FakingItViewController) {
presentNoAppointmentViewController()
}
}

This interaction is pretty straightforward:

1. Within fakingItViewControllerPressedIsFake(_:), you simply call

router.dismiss(animated:) to exit out of the coordinator flow.

2. Within fakingItViewControllerPressedNotFake(_:), you again call

presentNoAppointmentViewController() to show a
NoAppointmentRequiredViewController.

Wait a minute — so no matter what the user does, they ultimately winds up seeing
NoAppointmentRequiredViewController. What’s the deal with that?

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I talked with Ray about this, and uh, he says it’s a marketing tactic to get customers to
come into the office... either that or, someone didn’t write a backend for this example
app. So it appears there’s nowhere to actually submit this data. What are you going to do
now?

Not to fear! Just like in real life when the backend isn’t ready, you fake it! Hence, the
app ultimately shows the NoAppointmentRequiredViewController, regardless of the
prior selection.

You have just one more protocol you need to implement:

NoAppointmentRequiredViewControllerDelegate. Add this code to the end of this file:

// MARK: - NoAppointmentRequiredViewControllerDelegate
extension PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator:
NoAppointmentRequiredViewControllerDelegate {

public func noAppointmentViewControllerDidPressOkay(

_ controller: NoAppointmentRequiredViewController) {
router.dismiss(animated: true)
}
}

In response to noAppointmentViewControllerDidPressOkay(_:), you simply call

router.dismiss(animated:) to exit the app flow.

Great! You now just need a concrete router to use with this coordinator.

Creating ModalNavigationRouter
You may be wondering, “Couldn’t I just use NavigationRouter from the playground
example?”

NavigationRouter requires an existing UINavigationController and pushing view

controllers onto it. Since the schedule-a-visit flow is distinct from the Home flow, Ray
really wants this to be presented modally, which NavigationRouter isn’t designed to do.

Instead, you’ll create a new router that creates a new UINavigationController and
presents it using an existing parentViewController to support this use case.

Within the Routers group, create a new file called ModalNavigationRouter.swift, and
replace its contents with the following:

import UIKit

// 1
public class ModalNavigationRouter: NSObject {

// MARK: - Instance Properties

// 2

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public unowned let parentViewController: UIViewController

private let navigationController = UINavigationController()

private var onDismissForViewController:
[UIViewController: (() -> Void)] = [:]

// MARK: - Object Lifecycle

// 3
public init(parentViewController: UIViewController) {
self.parentViewController = parentViewController
super.init()
}
}

Here’s what you’ve done:

1. You declare ModalNavigationRouter as a subclass of NSObject. Being a subclass of

NSObject is required because you’ll later make this conform to
UINavigationControllerDelegate.

2. You then create instance properties for parentViewController,

navigationController and onDismissForViewController.

3. You lastly declare an initializer that accepts the parentViewController.

You next need to make ModalNavigationRouter conform to Router. Add the following
code after the class curly brace to do this:

// MARK: - Router
extension ModalNavigationRouter: Router {

// 1
public func present(_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool,
onDismissed: (() -> Void)?) {
onDismissForViewController[viewController] = onDismissed
if navigationController.viewControllers.count == 0 {
presentModally(viewController, animated: animated)
} else {
navigationController.pushViewController(
viewController, animated: animated)
}
}

private func presentModally(

_ viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool) {
// 2
addCancelButton(to: viewController)

// 3
navigationController.setViewControllers(
[viewController], animated: false)
parentViewController.present(navigationController,

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animated: animated,
completion: nil)
}

private func addCancelButton(to

viewController: UIViewController) {
viewController.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem =
UIBarButtonItem(title: "Cancel",
style: .plain,
target: self,
action: #selector(cancelPressed))
}

@objc private func cancelPressed() {

performOnDismissed(for:
navigationController.viewControllers.first!)
dismiss(animated: true)
}

// 4
public func dismiss(animated: Bool) {
performOnDismissed(for:
navigationController.viewControllers.first!)
parentViewController.dismiss(animated: animated,
completion: nil)
}

// 5
private func performOnDismissed(for viewController: UIViewController) {
guard let onDismiss = onDismissForViewController[viewController] else
{ return }
onDismiss()
onDismissForViewController[viewController] = nil
}
}

Here’s what this does:

1. In present(_:animated: onDismissed:), you first set onDismissForViewController

for the given view controller to the given closure. You then check if the
navigationController doesn’t have any view controllers. This means that you need
to modally present the navigation controller, which you do by calling
presentModally(_:animated:). Otherwise, you call pushViewController on the
navigationController.

2. Within presentModally(_:animated:), you first pass the view controller to

addCancelButton(to:) in order to set up a Cancel button on the view controller. If
the button is tapped, it will call cancelPressed(), perform the on-dismiss action
and ultimately call dismiss(animated:).

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3. Then, still within presentModally(_:animated:), you set the viewControllers on

the navigationController using the passed-in viewController. You then call
present on the parentViewController in order to modally present the
navigationController.

4. Within dismiss(animated:), you call performOnDismissed passing

navigationController.viewControllers.first. You then tell the
parentViewController to dismiss its presented view controller, which is the
navigationController.

5. performOnDismissed(for:) is exactly the same as the method in NavigationRouter:

It checks if there’s an existing onDismiss closure for the view controller, executes it
if found, and finally removes the closure from onDismissForViewController.

Great! The only remaining task to complete ModalNavigationRouter is to make it

conform to UINavigationControllerDelegate. Add the following to the end of the file
for this:

// MARK: - UINavigationControllerDelegate
extension ModalNavigationRouter: UINavigationControllerDelegate {

public func navigationController(

_ navigationController: UINavigationController,
didShow viewController: UIViewController,
animated: Bool) {

guard let dismissedViewController =

navigationController.transitionCoordinator?
.viewController(forKey: .from),
!navigationController.viewControllers
.contains(dismissedViewController) else {
return
}
performOnDismissed(for: dismissedViewController)
}
}

This also is exactly the same as the implementation from NavigationRouter. You check
if the from view controller has been popped, and if so, call performOnDismissed to
execute its on-dismiss closure.

Of course, you also need to set navigationController.delegate to the

ModalNavigationRouter. Add the following to the end of the
init(parentViewController:), right before the closing method brace:

navigationController.delegate = self

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Chapter 23: Coordinator Pattern

Using the PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator

Fantastic! You’ve created all of the necessary pieces to display the schedule-a-visit flow.
You now just need to put them all together.

Remember the TO-DO within the HomeCoordinator? Yep, this is where you’ll trigger the
PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator flow.

Open HomeCoordinator.swift and replace the TO-DO comment with the following:

let router =
ModalNavigationRouter(parentViewController: viewController)
let coordinator =
PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator(router: router)
presentChild(coordinator, animated: true)

You here create a new ModalNavigationRouter, which you then in turn pass use to
create a new PetAppointmentBuilderCoordinator and pass this to
presentChild(_:animated:) to kick off this flow.

Build and run, and then tap Schedule Visit to see the schedule-a-visit flow in action!

Key points
You learned about the coordinator pattern in this chapter. Here are its key points:

• The coordinator pattern organizes flow logic between view controllers. It involves a
coordinator protocol, concrete coordinator, router protocol, concrete router and view
controllers.

• The coordinator defines methods and properties all concrete coordinators must
implement.

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• The concrete coordinators know how to create concrete view controllers and their
order.

• The router defines methods all concrete routers must implement.

• The concrete routers know how to present view controllers.

• The concrete view controllers are typical view controllers, but they don’t know
about other view controllers.

• This pattern can be adopted for only part of an app or used across an entire
application.

Where to go from here?

The coordinator pattern is a great pattern for organizing long-term or very complex
apps. It was first introduced to the iOS community by Soroush Khanlou. You can learn
more about this pattern’s roots in his blog post about it here:

• http://khanlou.com/2015/01/the-coordinator/.

There are also several other structural and architectural patterns similar to Coordinator.
One example is VIPER, which further separates objects by responsibility. You can learn
more about it in this writeup on objc.io:

• https://www.objc.io/issues/13-architecture/viper/.

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C Conclusion

Let’s revisit that quote from the beginning of the book, taken from Design Patterns:
Elements of Reusable, Object-Oriented Software:

“Designing object-oriented software is hard.”

Hopefully you’ve seen in this book that good software design isn’t hard — it just takes a
little forethought and planning. To call such an important task hard scares away
novices, who must think that software design and design patterns in general must be
something reserved for the gurus of the discipline.

We think that nothing could be farther from the truth; good software design practices
can start early on in anyone’s career, and even if you’ve been a developer for decades,
there’s always something new to take away from a book like this. We hope you’ve
enjoyed reading it!

If you have any questions or comments as you work through this book, please stop by
our forums at http://forums.raywenderlich.com and look for the particular forum
category for this book.

Thank you again for purchasing this book. Your continued support is what makes the
tutorials, books, videos, conferences and other things we do at raywenderlich.com
possible, and we truly appreciate it!

Wishing you all the best in your continued adventures with design patterns,

– Joshua, Jay, Aaron, Darren, Matt and Chris

The Design Patterns by Tutorials team

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Design Patterns by Tutorials Want to Grow Your Skills?

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