Store dictionary in UserDefaults - swiftui

Question

This is a similar approach to Save dictionary to UserDefaults, however, it is intended for SwiftUI, not using a single line like set, so I want to store the value somewhere with a variable so I can call it easily. Also it's different because I'm asking for an initialization.
I have the following:
#Published var mealAndStatus: Dictionary
init() {
mealAndStatus = ["Breakfast": "initial", "Snack": "notSet", "Lunch": "notSet", "Snack2": "notSet", "Dinner": "notSet"]
if let storedDay = UserDefaults.standard.value(forKey: "mealAndStatus") {
mealAndStatus = storedDay as! Dictionary
}
}
1- How do I correctly store that dictionary in UserDefaults in SwiftUI?
2- That init, do I have to call it at the beginning of ContentView? Or can I leave it on the other swift file like that? Not sure how the init gets called.
I already made one with bool working:
#Published var startDay: Bool
init() {
startDay = true
if let storedDay = UserDefaults.standard.value(forKey: "startDay") {
startDay = storedDay as! Bool
}
}
but the dictionary doesn't seem to work. I need to initialize that dictionary and also store it in UserDefaults so I can access it later. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This is the perfect solution I found for SwiftUI:
Store this somewhere, in my case I created a class just for UserDefaults:
#Published var mealAndStatus: [String: Date] =
UserDefaults.standard.dictionary(forKey: "mealAndStatus") as? [String: Date] ?? [:] {
didSet {
UserDefaults.standard.set(self.mealAndStatus, forKey: "mealAndStatus")
}
}
That above initializes the dictionary and also creates a variable to be easily called and use to update the value. This can be modified at lunch time and add new values, that way is initialized with whatever I want.
Furthermore, now on Apple Dev wwdc20 they announced a new way of handling UserDefaults with SwiftUI which may be even better than the above. The propery wrapper is called: #AppStorage.

Answer 2

Using JSONEncoder and JSONDecoder would help you convert to data any struct or dictionary that conforms to codable.
let arrayKey = "arrayKey"
func store(dictionary: [String: String], key: String) {
var data: Data?
let encoder = JSONEncoder()
do {
data = try encoder.encode(dictionary)
} catch {
print("failed to get data")
}
UserDefaults.standard.set(data, forKey: key)
}
func fetchDictionay(key: String) -> [String: String]? {
let decoder = JSONDecoder()
do {
if let storedData = UserDefaults.standard.data(forKey: key) {
let newArray = try decoder.decode([String: String].self, from: storedData)
print("new array: \(newArray)")
return newArray
}
} catch {
print("couldn't decode array: \(error)")
}
return nil
}
// You would put this where you want to save the dictionary
let mealAndStatus = ["Breakfast": "initial", "Snack": "notSet", "Lunch": "notSet", "Snack2": "notSet", "Dinner": "notSet"]
store(dictionary: mealAndStatus, key: arrayKey)
// You would put this where you want to access the dictionary
let savedDictionary = fetchDictionay(key: arrayKey)
On a side note, you probably shouldn't be using standard defaults for storing stuff like this. Storing it as a database, or saving it in a file especially with encryption on eith the database or the file might be a bit safer.