CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosswiftcodabledecodable
Makalele
Makalele

Reputation: 7521

Swift Codable decode empty json as nil or empty object

Here's my code:

class LoginUserResponse : Codable {
    var result: String = ""
    var data: LoginUserResponseData?
    var mess: [String] = []
}

public class LoginUserResponseData : Codable {
    var userId = "0"
    var name = ""
}

Now, calling the server API I'm parsing response like this (using Stuff library to simplify parsing):

do {
    let loginUserResponse = try LoginUserResponse(json: string)
} catch let error {
    print(error)
}

When I enter the correct password I'm getting an answer like this:

{"result":"success","data":{"userId":"10","name":"Foo"},"mess":["You're logged in"]}

This is fine, the parser is working correctly.

While providing wrong password gives the following answer:

{"result":"error","data":{},"mess":["Wrong password"]}

In this situation, the parser is failing. It should set data to nil, but instead, it tries to decode it to the LoginUserResponseData object.

I'm using the same approach on Android using retrofit and it works fine. I rather don't want to make all fields as optional.

Is there a way to make parser treat empty json {} as nil? Or make LoginUserResponseData as non-optional and it'll just have default values? I know I can create a custom parser for this, but I have tons of requests like this and it'll require too much additional work.

Upvotes: 10

Views: 26194

Answers (7)

Alejandro L.Rocha
Alejandro L.Rocha

Reputation: 1145

First time I was facing this, normally backend would send nil but I was receiving empty data. Just make the data inside User data optional and it will work out of the box.

Looks like tedious to be unwrapping when needed, but if you have your API Layer, and your Business Model Layer which you would build from your API object with the exact data that you need is totally fine.

struct LoginUserResponse : Codable {
    let result: String
    let data: LoginUserResponseData?
    let mess: [String] = []
}

struct LoginUserResponseData : Codable {
    let userId: String?
    let name: String?
}

Upvotes: 1

promacuser
promacuser

Reputation: 396

Wow, okay this doesn't work at all. Sorry.

I came across this post a few years late, but there are certain problems with each of the solutions. Changing the JSON is potentially impractical, silencing the error with try? has the potential to ignore other, potentially legitimate errors.

Here's a proposed solution that I have used in a project via extending KeyedDecodingContainer: ``` fileprivate extension KeyedDecodingContainer { private struct EmptyObject: Decodable {}

func decodePossibleEmptyObject<T: Decodable>(_ key: K) throws -> T? {
    if let _ = try? decode(EmptyObject.self, forKey: key) {
        return nil
    }
    
    return try self.decode(T.self, forKey: key)
} } ```

Creating an EmptyObject representation allows try? to only succeed if, in fact, the object is an empty object. Otherwise, the decoder will continue to decode the object as requested, with errors falling through the method.

The biggest downside is that this requires a custom init(from: Coder).

Upvotes: 0

Arsonik
Arsonik

Reputation: 2316

As easy as that !

class LoginUserResponse : Codable {
    var result: String = ""
    var data: LoginUserResponseData?
    var mess: [String] = []

    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
        case result, data, mess
    }

    required init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
        let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        result = try values.decode(String.self, forKey: .result)
        mess = try values.decode([String].self, forKey: .mess)
        data = try? values.decode(LoginUserResponseData.self, forKey: .data)
    }
}

public class LoginUserResponseData : Codable {
    var userId = "0"
    var name = ""
}

let str = "{\"result\":\"success\",\"data\":{\"userId\":\"10\",\"name\":\"Foo\"},\"mess\":[\"You're logged in\"]}"
let str2 = "{\"result\":\"error\",\"data\":{},\"mess\":[\"Wrong password\"]}"

let decoder = JSONDecoder()
let result = try? decoder.decode(LoginUserResponse.self, from: str.data(using: .utf8)!)
let result2 = try? decoder.decode(LoginUserResponse.self, from: str2.data(using: .utf8)!)
dump(result)
dump(result2)

Upvotes: 8

vadian
vadian

Reputation: 285069

My recommendation is to decode result as enum and to initialize data on success.

struct LoginUserResponse : Decodable {

    enum Status : String, Decodable { case success, error }
    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey { case result, data, mess }

    let result : Status
    let data : UserData?
    let mess : [String]

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws
    {
        let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        result = try values.decode(Status.self, forKey: .result)
        mess = try values.decode([String].self, forKey: .mess)
        switch result {
            case .success: data = try values.decode(UserData.self, forKey: .data)
            case .error: data = nil
        }
    }
}

public struct UserData : Decodable {
    let userId : String
    let name : String
}

Upvotes: 4

Makalele
Makalele

Reputation: 7521

Seems it's not possible to treat {} as null, so instead I've created a simple tool to "fix" the API response:

extension String {

    func replaceEmptyJsonWithNull() -> String {
        return replacingOccurrences(of: "{}", with: "null")
    }

}

Other ways are described by @Vitaly Gozhenko and should be used, but I cannot change the server API nor want to write full custom decoder, because this one case.

Upvotes: 0

Sam
Sam

Reputation: 639

This is what your implementation of init(from: Decoder) should look like.

Note: You should consider changing LoginUserResponse from a class to a struct, since all it does is store values. 

struct LoginUserResponse: Codable {
    var result: String
    var data: LoginUserResponseData?
    var mess: [String]

    init(from decoder: Decoder) throws
    {
        let values = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
        result = try values.decode(String.self, forKey: .result)
        mess = try values.decode([String].self, forKey: .mess)
        if let d = try? values.decode(LoginUserResponseData.self, forKey: .data) {
            data = d
        }
    }
}

Upvotes: 3

Vitalii Gozhenko
Vitalii Gozhenko

Reputation: 9354

This is because {} is an empty object but not nil. You have 2 options:

  1. change on server to return null instead of {} for data key
  2. implement custom initializer init(from: Decoder) and handle this case manually

Upvotes: 3

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