Unit testing is an important skill in the toolbox of any engineer. Knowing how to write a reliable, robust test suite helps you write reliable and robust code. If you've followed my introduction to unit testing part one and part two, or if you're experienced with unit testing you know that your tests should run isolated from any other tests. You also know that you should make sure that your test relies on as few external dependencies as possible. When you want to test your Core Data code, it might not be immediately obvious how you can test your Core...

In WWDC2020's session Lists in UICollectionView a slide is shown where a UICollectionViewListCell's separator inset is updated by assigning a new leading anchor to separatorLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in when you try to do it. To set the separator inset for a UICollectionViewListCell you can update the leading anchor constraint by overriding updateConstraints in a UICollectionViewListCell subclass. Setting the anchor in init will cause the system to override your custom anchor leaving you with the default inset. override func updateConstraints() { super.updateConstraints() separatorLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: someOtherView.leadingAnchor, constant: 10).isActive = true } You can set the leadingAnchor constraint just like you would...

Apple provides several accessory types that you can use to apply certain affordances to a UICollectionViewListCell. However, sometimes these options don't suit your needs and you're looking for something more customizable. To add a custom accessory to a list cell instead of a standard one, you use the .custom accessory type. The initializer for this accessory takes a UICellAccessory.CustomViewConfiguration that describes how your accessory should look and where it's positioned. Let's dive right in with an example: // create the accessory configuration let customAccessory = UICellAccessory.CustomViewConfiguration( customView: UIImageView(image: UIImage(systemName: "paperplane")), placement: .leading(displayed: .always)) // add the accessory to the cell...

In iOS 14 Apple added the ability for developers to create collection views that look and feel like table views, except they are far, far more powerful. To do this, Apple introduced a new UICollectionViewCell subclass called UICollectionViewListCell. This new cell class allows us to implement several tableviewcell-like principles, including accessories. Adding accessories to a cell is done by assigning an array of UICellAccessory items to a UICollectionViewListCell's accessories property. For example, to make a UICollectionViewListCell show a disclosure indicator that makes it clear to a user that they will see more content if they tapp a cell, you would...

In iOS 14 Apple added the ability for developers to create collection views that look and feel like table views, except they are far, far more powerful. To do this, Apple introduced a new UICollectionViewCell subclass called UICollectionViewListCell. This new cell class allows us to implement several tableviewcell-like principles, including swipe actions. You can add both leading and trailing swipe actions to a cell by assigning a UISwipeActionsConfigurationProvider instance to the collection view's UICollectionLayoutListConfiguration object's leadingSwipeActionsConfigurationProvider and trailingSwipeActionsConfigurationProvider properties. This swipe actions provider is expected to return an instance of UISwipeActionsConfiguration. A UISwipeActionsConfiguration is created using an array of one...

In iOS 14 you can use the new UICollectionView.CellRegistration class to register and configure your UICollectionViewCell instances. So no more let cellIdentifier = "MyCell", no more collectionView.dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier: "MyCell", for: indexPath) and best of all, you no longer need to cast the cell returned by dequeueReusableCell(withReuseIdentifier:for:) to your custom cell class. Adopting UICollectionView.CellRegistration in your project is surprisingly straightforward. For demo purposes I created the following UICollectionViewCell subclass: class MyCollectionViewCell: UICollectionViewCell { let label = UILabel() required init?(coder: NSCoder) { fatalError("nope!") } override init(frame: CGRect) { super.init(frame: frame) contentView.addSubview(label) label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false label.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.safeAreaLayoutGuide.topAnchor, constant: 8).isActive = true label.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: contentView.safeAreaLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor, constant:...

A Double and Float are both used to represent decimal numbers, but they do so in slightly different ways. If you initialize a decimal number in Swift using as shown below, the Swift compiler will assume that you meant to create a Double: let val = 3.123 // val is inferred to be Double The reason for this is that Double is the more precise type when comparing it to Float. A Float holds a total of 8 positions, or 32 bits. Since Double is more precise, it can hold more positions. It uses 64 bits to do this. In...

Property wrappers are a feature that was introduced in Swift 5.1 and they play a huge role in SwiftUI and Combine which are two frameworks that shipped alongside Swift 5.1 in iOS 13. The community was quick to create some useful examples that were embraced by folks relatively quickly. As a user of property wrappers, you don't need to be concerned about what they are exactly, or how they work. All that you need to know is how you can use them. However, if you're curious how property wrappers work on the inside, this is just the post for you....

Swift's type system is (mostly) fantastic. Its tight constraints and flexible generics allow developers to express complicated concepts in an extremely safe manner because the Swift compiler will detect and flag any inconsistencies within the types in your program. While this is great most of the time, there are times where Swift's strict typing gets in the way of what we're trying to build. This is especially true if you're working on code that involves protocols and generics. With protocols and generics, you can express ideas that are insanely complex and flexible. But sometimes you're coding along happily and the...

Note: After publishing this article, it has been brought to my attention that the folks from @pointfreeco have a very similar solution for the problems I outline in this post. It's called tagged and implements the same features I cover in this post with several useful extensions. If you like this post and plan to use the concepts I describe, you should take a look at tagged. It seems that on the Swift forums, there are a couple of topics that come up regularly. One of these topics is the newtype for Swift discussion. Last week, I saw a new...