Features

• Uses Swift Reflection to convert value types to NSManagedObjects
• iOS and Mac OS X support
• Use with

  structs

• Works fine with

  let

  and

  var

  based properties
• Swift 5.0

Rationale

Swift introduced versatile value types into the iOS and Cocoa development domains. They're lightweight, fast, safe, enforce immutability and much more. However, as soon as the need for CoreData in a project manifests itself, we have to go back to reference types and

@objc

CoreValue is a lightweight wrapper framework around Core Data. It takes care of

boxing

unboxing

Usage

The following struct supports boxing, unboxing, and keeping object state:

struct Shop: CVManagedPersistentStruct {

// The name of the CoreData entity
static let EntityName = "Shop"

// The ObjectID of the CoreData object we saved to or loaded from
var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?

// Our properties
let name: String
var age: Int32
var owner: Owner?

// Create a Value Type from an NSManagedObject
// If this looks too complex, see below for an explanation and alternatives
static func fromObject(_ o: NSManagedObject) throws -> XShop {
    return try curry(self.init)
         o  o  o  o 
That's it. Everything else it automated from here. Here're some examples of what you can do with 
Shop
 then:
// Get all shops (`[Shop]` is required for the type checker to get your intent!)
let shops: [Shop] = Shop.query(self.context, predicate: nil)

// Create a shop
let aShop = Shop(objectID: nil, name: "Household Wares", age: 30, owner: nil)
// Store it as a managed object
aShop.save(self.context)
// Change the age
aShop.age = 40
// Update the managed object in the store
aShop.save(self.context)
// Delete the object
aShop.delete(self.context)
// Convert a managed object into a shop (see below)
let nsShop: Shop? = try? Shop.fromObject(aNSManagedObject)
// Convert a shop into an nsmanagedobject
let shopObj = nsShop.mutatingToObject(self.context)

Querying

There're two ways of querying objects from Core Data into values:
// With Sort Descriptors
public static func query(context: NSManagedObjectContext, predicate: NSPredicate?, sortDescriptors: [NSSortDescriptor]) -> Array

// Without sort descriptors
public static func query(context: NSManagedObjectContext, predicate: NSPredicate?) -> Array

If no 
NSPredicate
 is given, all objects for the selected Entity are returned.

Usage in Detail

CVManagedPersistentStruct
 is a 
typealias
 for the two primary protocols of CoreValue: 
BoxingPersistentStruct
 and 
UnboxingStruct
.

Let's see what they do.

BoxingPersistentStruct

Boxing is the process of taking a value type and returning an 
NSManagedObject
. CoreValue really loves you and that's why it does all the hard work for you via Swift's 
Reflection
 feature. See for yourself:
struct Counter: BoxingStruct
    static let EntityName = "Counter"
    var count: Int
    let name: String
}

That's it. Your value type is now CoreData compliant. Just call 
aCounter.toObject(context)
 and you'll get a properly encoded 
NSManagedObject
!

If you're interested, have a look at the 
internalToObject
 function in CoreValue.swift, which takes care of this.

Boxing in Detail

Keen observers will have noted that the structure above actually doesn't implement the 
BoxingPersistentStruct
 protocol, but instead something different called 
BoxingStruct
, what's happening here?

By default, Value types are immutable, so even if you define a property as a var, you still can't change it from within except by declaring your function mutable. Swift also doesn't allow us to define properties in protocol extensions, so any state that we wish to assign on a value type has to be via specific properties on the value type.

When we create or load an 
NSManagedObject
 from CoreData, we need a way to store the connection to the original 
NSManagedObject
 in the value type. Otherwise, calling 
save
 again (say after updating the value type) would not update the 
NSManagedObject
 in question, but instead insert a new 
NSManagedObject into the store. That's obviously not what we want.

Since we cannot implicitly add any state whatsoever to a protocol, we have to do this explicitly. That's why there's a separate protocol for persistent storage:
struct Counter: BoxingPersistentStruct
    let EntityName = "Counter"

var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?

var count: Int
let name: String
}

The main difference here is the addition of 
objectID
. Once this property is there, 
BoxingPersistentStruct
's bag of wonders (
.save
, 
.delete
, 
.mutatingToObject
) can be used.

What's the usecase of the 
BoxingStruct
 protocol then, you may ask. The advantage is that 
BoxingStruct
 does not require your value type to be mutable, and does not extend it with any mutable functions by default, keeping it a truly immutable value type. It still can use 
.toObject
 to convert a value type into an 
NSManagedObject
, however it can't modify this object afterwards. So it is still useful for all scenarios where you're only performing insertions (like a cache, or a log) or where any modifications are performed in bulk (delete all), or where updating will be performed on the 
NSManagedObject
 itself (
.valueForKey
, 
.save
).

Boxing and Sub Properties

A word of advice: If you have value types in your value types, like:
struct Employee: BoxingPersistentStruct {
    let EntityName = "Employee"
    var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?
    let name: String
}

struct Shop: BoxingPersistentStruct {
    let EntityName = "Counter"
    var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?
    let employees: [Employee]
}

Then you have to make sure that all value types conform to the same boxing protocol, either 
BoxingPersistentStruct
 or 
BoxingStruct
. The type checker cannot check this and report this as an error.

Ephemeral Objects

Most protocols in CoreValue mark the 
NSManagedObjectContext
 as an optional, which means that you don't have to supply it. Boxing will still work as expected, only the resulting 
NSManagedObject
s will be ephemeral, that is, they're not bound to a context, they can't be stored. There're few use cases for this, but it is important to note that not supplying a 
NSManagedObjectContext
 will not result in an error.

UnboxingStruct

In CoreValue, 
boxed
 refers to values in an 
NSManagedObject
 container. I.e. 
NSNumber
 is boxing an 
Int
, 
NSOrderedSet
 an 
Array
, and 
NSManagedObject
 itself is boxing a value type (i.e. 
Shop
).

UnboxingStruct
 can be applied to any struct or class that you intend to initialize from a 
NSManagedObject
. It only has one requirement that needs to be implemented, and that's 
fromObject
 which takes an 
NSManagedObject
 and should return a value type. Here's a very simple and unsafe example:
struct Counter: UnboxingStruct
    var count: Int
    let name: String
    static func fromObject(_ object: NSManagedObject) throws -> Counter {
        return Counter(
        count: object.valueForKey("count")!.integerValue,
        name: object.valueForKey("name") as! String
    )
    }
}

Even though this example is not safe, we can observe several things from it. First, the implementation overhead is minimal. Second, the method can throw an error. That's because unboxing can fail in a multitude of ways (wrong value, no value, wrong entity, unknown entity, etc). If unboxing fails in any way, we throw an 
NSError
. The other benefit of unboxing, that it allows us to take a shortcut (which CoreValue deviously copied from Argo). Utilizing several custom operators, the unboxing process can be greatly simplified:
struct Counter: UnboxingStruct
    var count: Int
    let name: String
    static func fromObject(_ object: NSManagedObject) throws -> Counter {
        return try curry(self.init)  object  object 
This code takes the automatic initializer, curries it and maps it over multiple incarnations of unboxing functions (
) until it can return a Counter (or throw an error).

But what about these weird runes? Here's an in-detail overview of what's happening here:

Unboxing in Detail

curry(self.init)

Convert 
(A, B) -> T
 into 
A -> B -> C
 so that it can be called step by step


Map the following operations over the 
A -> B -> fn
 that we just created

object 
First operation: Take 
object
, call 
valueForKey
 with the key 
"count"
 and assign this as the value for the first type of the curryed init function 
A

object 
Second operation: Take 
object
, call 
valueForKey
 with the key 
"count"
 and assign this as the value for the second type of the curryed init function 
B

Other Operators

Custom Operators are observed as a critical Swift feature, and rightly so. Too many of those make a codebase difficult to read and understand. The following custom operators are the same as in several other Swift Frameworks (see Runes and Argo). They're basically a verbatim copy from Haskell, so while that doesn't make them less custom or even official, they're at least unofficially agreed upon.

 is not the only operator needed to encode objects. Here's a list of all supported operators:

| Operator | Description |
|-|-|
 
   | Map the following operations (i.e. combine 
map
 operations)
 
   | Unbox a normal value (i.e. 
var shop: Shop
)
 
 | Unbox a set/list of values (i.e. 
var shops: [Shops]
)
 
  | Unbox an optional value (i.e. 
var shop: Shop?
)

CVManagedStruct

Since most of the time you probably want boxing and unboxing functionality, CoreValue includes two handy typealiases, 
CVManagedStruct
 and 
CVManagedPersistentStruct
 which contain Boxing and Unboxing in one type.


RawRepresentable
 Enum support

By extending 
RawRepresentable
, you can use Swift 
enums
 right away without having to first make sure your enum conforms to 
CVManagedStruct
.
enum CarType: String {
    case pickup
    case sedan
    case hatchback
}

extension CarType: Boxing, Unboxing {}
struct Car: CVManagedPersistentStruct {
    static let EntityName = "Car"
    var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?
    var name: String
    var type: CarType
static func fromObject(_ o: NSManagedObject) throws -> Car {
    return try curry(self.init)
         o  o  o 
Docs

Have a look at CoreValue.swift, it's full of docstrings.

Alternatively, there's a lot of usage in the Unit Tests.

Here's a  more complex example of CoreValue in use:
struct Employee: CVManagedPersistentStruct {

static let EntityName = "Employee"

var objectID: NSManagedObjectID?

let name: String
var age: Int16
let position: String?
let department: String
let job: String

static func fromObject(_ o: NSManagedObject) throws -> Employee {
    return try curry(self.init)
         o  o  o  o  o  o  Shop {
    return try curry(self.init)
         o  o  o  o 
CVManagedUniqueStruct and REST / Serialization / JSON

All the examples we've seen so far resolve around a use case where data is contained within your app. This means that the unique identifier of an 
NSManagedObject
 or struct is dicated by the 
NSManagedObjectID
 unique identifier which CoreData generates. This is fine as long as you don't plan to interact with outside data. If your data is loaded from external sources (i.e. JSON from a Rest API) then it may already have a unique identifier. 
CVManagedUniqueStruct
 allows you to force CoreValue / CoreData to use this external unique identifier in 
NSManagedObjectID
's stead. The implementation is easy. You just have to conform to the 
BoxingUniqueStruct
 protocol which requires the implementation of a 
var
 naming the unique id field and a function returning the current ID value:
/// Name of the Identifier in the CoreData (e.g: 'id')
static var IdentifierName: String { get }

/// Value of the Identifier for the current struct (e.g: 'self.id')
func IdentifierValue() -> IdentifierType

Here's a complete & simple example:
struct Author: CVManagedUniqueStruct {

static let EntityName = "Author"

static var IdentifierName: String = "id"

func IdentifierValue() -> IdentifierType { return self.id }

let id: String
let name: String

static func fromObject(_ o: NSManagedObject) throws -> Author {
    return try curry(self.init)
         o  o 
Please not that 
CVManagedUniqueStruct
 adds an (roughly) O(n) overhead on top of 
NSManagedObjectID
 based solutions due to the way object lookup is currently implemented.

State

All CoreData Datatypes are supported, with the following exceptions:
- Transformable
- Unordered Collections / 
NSSet
 (Currently, only ordered collections are supported)

Fetched properties are not supported yet.

Installation (iOS and macOS)

CocoaPods

Add the following to your Podfile:
pod 'CoreValue'

You will also need to make sure you're opting into using frameworks:
use_frameworks!

Then run 
pod install
 with CocoaPods 1.01 or newer.

Carthage

Add the following to your Cartfile:
github "terhechte/CoreValue" ~> 0.3.0

Then run 
carthage update
.

Follow the current instructions in Carthage's README
for up to date installation instructions.

The 
import CoreValue
 directive is required in order to use CoreValue.

Manually


Copy the 
CoreValue.swift
 and 
curry.swift
 file into your project.
Add the 
CoreData
 framework to your project


There is no need for 
import CoreValue
 when manually installing.

Contact

Benedikt Terhechte 

@terhechte

Appventure.me

Changelog

Version 0.4.0

• Swift 5 Support thanks to DaGerry

Version 0.3.0

• Swift 3 Support
• Added CVManagedUniqueStruct thanks to tkohout

Version 0.2.0

• Switched Error Handling from

  Unboxed

  to Swift's native

  throw

  . Big thanks to Adlai Holler for spearheading this!
• Huge Performance improvements: Boxing is roughly 80% faster and Unboxing is roughly 90% faster
• Improved support for nested collections thanks to Roman Kříž.
• RawRepresentable support (see documentation above) thanks to tkohout

Version 0.1.6

• Made

  CVManagedPersistentStruct

  public
• Fixed issue with empty collections

Version 0.1.4

Included pull request from AlexanderKaraberov which includes a fix to the delete function

Version 0.1.3

Updated to most recent Swift 2.0 b4 changes

Version 0.1.2

Renamed NSManagedStruct and NSPersistentManagedStruct to CVManagedStruct and CVPersistentManagedStruct as NS is preserved prefix for Apple classes

Version 0.1.1

Added CocoaPods support

Version 0.1.0

Initial Release

Acknoledgements

CoreValue uses ideas and code from thoughtbot's Argo framework for JSON decoding. Most notably their

curry

License

The CoreValue source code is available under the MIT License.

Open Tasks

• [ ] test unboxing with custom initializers (init(...))
• [ ] change the protocol composition so that the required implementations (entityname, objectID, fromObject) form an otherwise empty protocol so it is easier to see the protocol and implement the requirements
• [ ] add travis build
• [ ] support aggregation
• [ ] add support for nsset / unordered lists
• [ ] add support for fetched properties (could be a struct a la (objects, predicate))
• [ ] support transformable: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CoreData/Articles/cdNSAttributes.html
• [ ] add jazzy for docs and update headers to have proper docs
• [ ] document multi threading support via objectID