Understanding Data Updating

Heads up... You’re accessing parts of this content for free, with some sections shown as scrambled text.

Heads up... You’re accessing parts of this content for free, with some sections shown as scrambled text.

Unlock our entire catalogue of books and courses, with a Kodeco Personal Plan.

Unlock now

Data updating is essential when the state of your app changes due to user interactions such as button presses or navigation actions, or external events like receiving new data from a network request. You want the UI to reflect these state changes.

Declarative UI

SwiftUI is a declarative UI framework. SwiftUI lets you define how UI should look based on the data, and you don’t have to define how the UI transitions between different states.

The Role of State Management

SwiftUI uses state management to update data. State management tools maintain a consistent and reactive UI that automatically updates in response to changes in the app’s state. SwiftUI provides several tools, including @State and the Observable macro, that are designed to manage state. You’ll learn more about how to use these tools in the next module’s lessons. For now, you’ll focus on exploring why these tools are necessary.

How SwiftUI Updates the UI

In SwiftUI, the app’s state is based on the data. To update the UI, you must first update the data. To update the data, you must use state management tools. SwiftUI then automatically recalculates the UI and performs necessary changes based on the new state, ensuring the UI always aligns with the underlying data model. This makes it easy to control the data flow across the app and eases app maintenance and scaling.

Scenarios Requiring UI Updates

The following scenarios require UI updates:

Demonstrating the Need for State Management

Effective state management ensures that UI updates occur when underlying data changes. Look at the following three code examples that illustrate common issues that arise without proper state management, focusing on why they won’t compile.

Example 1: Simple Counter

Consider this simple counter example demonstrating a typical issue when implementing data updating for the first time:

struct ContentView: View {
  var count = 0

  var body: some View {
    Text("Count: \(count)")

    Button("Increment") {
      // This attempt won't update the view:
      self.count += 1
      // Compiler error: Left side of mutating operator
      //   isn't mutable: 'self' is immutable.
    }
  }
}

Example 2: Fetching Data

Here’s another example, this time trying to fetch and display data from the network:

struct ContentView: View {
  var postTitle = "Loading..."

  var body: some View {
    Text(postTitle)
      .task {
        // This update won't be reflected in the UI:
        self.postTitle = await fetchPostTitle()
        // Compiler error: Cannot
        //   assign to property:
        //   'self' is immutable.
      }
  }

  func fetchPostTitle() async -> String {
    let urlString = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1"
    guard let url = URL(string: urlString) else {
      return "Invalid URL"
    }

    do {
      let (data, _) = try await URLSession.shared.data(from: url)
      let post = try JSONDecoder().decode(Post.self, from: data)
      return post.title
    } catch {
      return "Failed to load post"
    }
  }
}

struct Post: Codable {
  var title: String
}

Example 3: Responding to App Backgrounding

Last, examine this example monitoring app state changes:

struct AppStateObserverView: View {
  @Environment(\.scenePhase)
  var scenePhase

  var appState = "Active"

  var body: some View {
    Text("App State: \(appState)")
      .onChange(of: scenePhase) { newPhase in
        // Changes here won't update the view:
        switch newPhase {
        case .active:
          self.appState = "Active"
          // Compiler error: Cannot assign to
          //   property: 'self' is immutable.
        case .background:
          self.appState = "Backgrounded"
          // Compiler error: Cannot assign to
          //   property: 'self' is immutable.
        case .inactive:
          self.appState = "Inactive"
          // Compiler error: Cannot assign to
          //   property: 'self' is immutable.
        @unknown default:
          self.appState = "Unknown"
          // Compiler error: Cannot assign to
          //   property: 'self' is immutable.
        }
      }
  }
}

Upcoming Video Demo: Observing the Limitations of Static Data Management

To reinforce these concepts, the upcoming video demo will revisit the simple counter example. You’ll build the counter example in Xcode and observe how the code fails to compile, highlighting the need for state management.

See forum comments
Download course materials from Github
Previous: Introduction Next: Demo: Observing the Limitations of Static Data Management