Using CoreData with SwiftUI

CoreData is Apple’s object graph and persistence framework. It provides data sources for synchronising data with view. Let’s take a look on how to use those data sources in SwiftUI views. Starting with NSFetchedResultsController what is used for list and collection views, after that observing NSManagedObject directly from SwiftUI view and lastly subscribing to managed object context notifications.

NSFetchedResultsController

NSFetchedResultsController is used for providing data in table and collection views. It supports sorting and filtering data and arranging data into sections. We can use delegate for getting change callbacks. NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate contains several methods:

	// Diffable data source (new in iOS 13)
	optional func controller(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>, didChangeContentWith snapshot: NSDiffableDataSourceSnapshot)
	optional func controller(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>, didChangeContentWith diff: CollectionDifference<NSManagedObjectID>)
	// Manually updating table view and collection view
	optional func controller(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>, didChange anObject: Any, at indexPath: IndexPath?, for type: NSFetchedResultsChangeType, newIndexPath: IndexPath?)
	optional func controller(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>, didChange sectionInfo: NSFetchedResultsSectionInfo, atSectionIndex sectionIndex: Int, for type: NSFetchedResultsChangeType)
	optional func controllerWillChangeContent(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>)
	optional func controllerDidChangeContent(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>)

view raw DataSources.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In SwiftUI we are not going to directly manipulate views. Only what we need to do is letting SwiftUI view know that data is about to change. Let’s take a look on simple app with list of items stored by CoreData. Data is represented by ColorItem where only stored value is hex string of the color (e.g. #AA22BB).

	final class ColorItem: NSManagedObject {
	@NSManaged var hex: String
	}

view raw ColorItem.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

ColorItems are managed by ContentView’s view model. View model creates NSFetchedResultsController, performs fetch and provides array of fetched ColorItems to the SwiftUI’s List. In addition, view model is delegate of the NSFetchedResultsController (requires view model to be NSObject subclass). As view model is ObservableObject, we can very easily let SwiftUI view know that it should refresh. We need to do two things: firstly, implementing controllerWillChangeContent delegate method and calling send() on objectWillChange publisher. Secondly, view model property must use @ObservedObject property wrapper in SwiftUI view. Result is that SwiftUI view subscribes to objectWillChange publisher and refreshes whenever publisher emits an event.

	extension ContentView {
	final class ViewModel: NSObject, NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate, ObservableObject {
	private let colorController: NSFetchedResultsController<ColorItem>
	init(managedObjectContext: NSManagedObjectContext) {
	let sortDescriptors = [NSSortDescriptor(keyPath: \ColorItem.hex, ascending: true)]
	colorController = ColorItem.resultsController(context: managedObjectContext, sortDescriptors: sortDescriptors)
	super.init()
	colorController.delegate = self
	try? colorController.performFetch()
	}
	func controllerWillChangeContent(_ controller: NSFetchedResultsController<NSFetchRequestResult>) {
	objectWillChange.send()
	}
	var colors: [ColorItem] {
	return colorController.fetchedObjects ?? []
	}
	}
	}
	extension ColorItem {
	static func resultsController(context: NSManagedObjectContext, sortDescriptors: [NSSortDescriptor] = []) -> NSFetchedResultsController<ColorItem> {
	let request = NSFetchRequest<ColorItem>(entityName: "ColorItem")
	request.sortDescriptors = sortDescriptors.isEmpty ? nil : sortDescriptors
	return NSFetchedResultsController(fetchRequest: request, managedObjectContext: context, sectionNameKeyPath: nil, cacheName: nil)
	}
	}

view raw ViewModelFetchedResults.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

And finally let’s see the ContentView implementation. NSManagedObject has objectID property what we can use in List for identifying every ColorItem. Cell is custom view what we’ll take a look at next.

	struct ContentView: View {
	@ObservedObject var viewModel: ViewModel
	var body: some View {
	NavigationView {
	VStack {
	List(viewModel.colors, id: \.objectID) { (colorItem) in
	Cell(colorItem: colorItem)
	}
	}.navigationBarTitle("Colors")
	}
	}
	}

view raw ContentViewFetchedResults.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

NSManagedObject

NSManagedObject implements ObservableObject protocol and therefore it is possible to use it together with @ObservedObject property wrapper and getting SwiftUI view refreshed automatically when any of the ColorItem properties change. NSFetchedResultsController required a little bit of code for setting up delegate but that is not the case with NSManagedObject.

	struct Cell: View {
	@ObservedObject var colorItem: ColorItem
	var body: some View {
	HStack {
	Text(verbatim: colorItem.hex)
	Spacer()
	Rectangle().foregroundColor(Color(colorItem.uiColor)).frame(minWidth: 50, maxWidth: 50)
	}
	}
	}

view raw Cell.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In addition, if there are cases where we would like to observe specific property, then Combine provides publisher for key path. Because NSManagedObject supports key-value observing we can use the publisher and subscribe to individual property changes.

	let cancellable = color.publisher(for: \.hex).sink { (string) in
	print(string)
	}

view raw KVOPublisherSink.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Subscribing to CoreData notifications

When we need to observe changes in persistent store we can observe notifications sent by the framework. As NotificationCenter supports publishers, we can subscribe to it, unpack data from notification and do something with the data. For making this easier we can introduce a separate type. It will unpack the user info dictionary and filter by type. This allows to easily observe, for example, ColorItem insertions. Or, if we would like to receive every possible change, we can specify NSManagedObject as the generic type.

	private var cancellables = [AnyCancellable]()
	let cancellable = NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: .NSManagedObjectContextObjectsDidChange, object: managedObjectContext)
	.compactMap({ ManagedObjectContextChanges<ColorItem>(notification: $0) }).sink { (changes) in
	print(changes)
	}
	cancellables.append(cancellable)
	struct ManagedObjectContextChanges<T: NSManagedObject> {
	let inserted: Set<T>
	let deleted: Set<T>
	let updated: Set<T>
	init?(notification: Notification) {
	let unpack: (String) -> Set<T> = { key in
	let managedObjects = (notification.userInfo?[key] as? Set<NSManagedObject>) ?? []
	return Set(managedObjects.compactMap({ $0 as? T }))
	}
	deleted = unpack(NSDeletedObjectsKey)
	inserted = unpack(NSInsertedObjectsKey)
	updated = unpack(NSUpdatedObjectsKey).union(unpack(NSRefreshedObjectsKey))
	if deleted.isEmpty, inserted.isEmpty, updated.isEmpty {
	return nil
	}
	}
	}

view raw ManagedObjectContextChanges.swift hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Summary

We took a look at how to use NSFetchedResultsController and NSManagedObject in SwiftUI views. We saw that integrating NSFetchedResultsController requires only a little bit of code and using NSManagedObject even less. In addition, we looked at subscribing to CoreData notifications and unpacking notification payload.

If this was helpful, please let me know on Mastodon@toomasvahter or Twitter @toomasvahter. Feel free to subscribe to RSS feed. Thank you for reading.

Example project

CoreDataCombineSwiftUI (Xcode 11.3)