Configuration Objects and the Then Microframework

When parameter lists grow or two kinds of parameters seem to go together a lot, it’s time use the extract parameter object refactoring for greater good – then you can even specify sensible defaults.

This is a typical way to pass a set of options to an objects during initialization in a language like Swift. In languages like JavaScript or Ruby, dictionaries of key–value pairs can work just as well. Using dictionaries in Swift for this can be a pain, though.

Now Soroush wrote about a way that uses the Then microframework as a replacement for configuaration dictionaries. This way you don’t have to promote every property to the initializer’s list of parameters. Here’s a before and after, where you can see that without then you have to write a lot of repeating boilerplate:

// Before

struct FieldData {
    let title: String
    let placeholder: String
    let keyboardType: UIKeyboardType
    let secureEntry: Bool
    let autocorrectType: UITextAutocorrectionType
    let autocapitalizationType: UITextAutocapitalizationType

    init(title: String,
        placeholder: String = "",
        keyboardType: UIKeyboardType = .Default,
        secureEntry: Bool = false,
        autocorrectType: UITextAutocorrectionType = .None,
        autocapitalizationType: UITextAutocapitalizationType = .None)
        {
            self.title = title
            self.placeholder = placeholder
            self.keyboardType = keyboardType
            self.secureEntry = secureEntry
            self.autocorrectType = autocorrectType
            self.autocapitalizationType = autocapitalizationType
    }
}

let fieldData = FieldData(title: "Password", secureEntry: true)

Now with then, making non-mandatory properties mutable and getting rid of the boilerplate:

// After

struct FieldData {
    let title: String
    var placeholder = ""
    var keyboardType = UIKeyboardType.Default
    var secureEntry = false
    var autocorrectType = UITextAutocorrectionType.No
    var autocapitalizationType = UITextAutocapitalizationType.None

    init(title: String) {
        self.title = title
    }
}

let fieldData = FieldData(title: "Password").then({
    $0.secureEntry = true
})

That’s a Swift alternative to Ruby’s hash-based option initializers. There, the dictionary’s key is used as the setter’s name which is then invoked like so:

class Example
  attr_reader :name, :age
  
  def initialize(args)
    args.each do |k,v|
      instance_variable_set("@#{k}", v) unless v.nil?
    end
  end
end

e1 = Example.new :name => 'foo', :age => 33
#=> #<Example:0x3f9a1c @name="foo", @age=33>

Always Write Functions to Cope with all Possible Parameter Values

Matt Galagher is back writing at Cocoa with Love. His goal is maintainability, which is the greatest of all, I think. It’s easy to copy code samples together to create an app, bur it’s hard to create a product you can keep alive and make better over years. In that vein, his first article, “Partial functions in Swift, Part 1: Avoidance”, includes a lot of details why partial functions will hurt you. This is a great topic. Read his post for the basic set theory involved.

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