Swift 🏎

Reference Resources
Code formatting
Project Structure
Objects and Structures
Design Patterns
Code clarity & Best practices

Reference Resources

Swift’s Official Guidelines
Ray Wenderlich’s Guidelines

When it comes to Objective-C, most conventions are shared with Swift. But when there are differences, specific examples for Objective-C are added. For more generic conventions, we follow:

Apple’s Guidelines
Ray Wenderlich’s Guidelines

Code formatting

General

On average, row width should not exceed 120 characters. However, the main criterion is readability.
Do not align code as ASCII-art.
When using Objective-C, class names must be unique across an entire application. The convention is to use prefixes on all classes. For Swift, class prefixes are optional. It will depend on the project’s type. If we are working with an Objective-C codebase, we will use prefixes. Otherwise, we will not use prefixes classes except for Error classes.
```
// Good for Objective-C
RPViewController, RPError

// Good for Swift
ViewController, Manager
```
Use proper data types. For non-integer types, use decimal point explicitly.
```
// Bad
let width = 320

// Good
let width: CGFloat = 320.0
```
Do not keep outdated code in comments as it could confuse other team members and could cause less productivity. Source control is a way to go in this case 😌.

Braces and Indents

Curly braces open on the same line with the method signature and close on a new line.

// Bad
func viewDidLoad()
{
    super.viewDidLoad()
}

// Good
func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
}

Separate logical code blocks with 1 line wrap. A random number of spaces and line breaks are not allowed.

Add a blank line after the opening brace ({), within class, protocol, struct, extension or enum.

// Bad
class User() {
    let name: String
    let age: Int
}

// Good
class User() {

    let name: String
    let age: Int
}

// Good
enum Direction {

    case north
    case south  
}

Do not add a blank line after the opening brace, within func.

// Bad
func doSomething() {

    print("done")
}

// Good
func doSomething() {
    print("done")
}

Use the same indent for switch and case sentence, within switch.

// Bad
switch value {
  case .caseA:
      print("a")
      print("aa")
  case .caseB:
      print("b")
      print("bb")
}

// Good
switch value {
case .caseA:
    print("a")
    print("aa")
case .caseB:
    print("b")
    print("bb")
}

Tip: Prevent Xcode add extra indents when formatting by unchecking Indent switch/case labels in for Swift in Settings > Text Editing.

Do not add a blank line after each case, within switch.

// Bad
switch value {
case .caseA:
    print("A")
    doA()

case .caseB:
    print("B")
    doB()

case .caseC:
    print("C")
    doC()

}

// Good
switch value {
case .caseA:
    print("A")
    doA()
case .caseB:
    print("B")
    doB()
case .caseC:
    print("C")
    doC()
}

Do not add a line break after each single line case, within switch.

// Bad
switch value {
case .caseA:
    print("a")
case .caseB:
    print("b")
}

// Good
switch value {
case .caseA: print("a")
case .caseB: print("b")
}

Use same line syntax for a short computed property.

// Bad
var a: Bool {

    true
}

// Bad
var a: Bool {
    true
}

// Good
var a: Bool { true }

Declaration

Methods

Keep method signatures short and clear.
Do not keep empty methods, autogenerated methods, methods that only call super implementation.
Method must do exactly what is declared in the signature, to avoid implicit side effects.
Mark methods that perform heavy operations with special words: load, fetch, create.
On average, a method’s body should not exceed the limit of 80 lines of code.

Properties

Prefer outlets as weak, but be aware of a case where strong reference is required. Suppose we have an outlet of NSLayoutConstraint in UITableView where we need to activate and deactivate it. It’s possible that, once deactivated, the outlet will be released from memory since there’s no strong reference pointing to it.
Variables of Boolean type should have is, has prefixes.

Closures

Do not use the words callback, block, and closure as parts of the names. Instead, provide names that describe the task the closure performs or specify the moment it is called.
```
// Bad
callback, comparingBlock, sortingClosure, selectionAction, beginBlock

// Good
completion, comparator, sortCriteria, didSelectItem, willBeginParsing
```
Use typealias for reused closure types.

For better readability, use Void instead of empty braces.

// Bad
var action: () -> ()

// Good
var action: () -> Void

Lightweight Generics

Objective-C type declarations using lightweight generic parameterization are imported by Swift with information about the type of their contents preserved.

Do not have space between TYPE and GENERIC.

// Bad
NSArray <NSString *> *a

// Good
NSArray<NSString *> *a

Reused resources

Formatter

Keep formatters in a separate file.
Do not create formatters in a cycle, they are heavy objects.
Use namespaces to group formatters.

Constants

Do not keep constants in a separate file.
Keep as few constants as possible.
Sets of settings keep in .plist files.

Colors

Give colors reasonable names.
Do not use the word color in color names.
Try to keep the color palette as small as possible. A large set of used colors is usually caused by inconsistency in design specifications.
Expressive names help to manage and remember reused colors.

Avoid giving too specific names, make names general.

// Bad
var textFieldBorder: UIColor
var veryDarkGrey: UIColor

// Good
var ashGrey: UIColor
var mandyRed: UIColor

Do not use #colorLiteral. Sometimes, the color is not shown properly on Xcode.

// Bad
let dingleyGreen = #colorLiteral(red: 0.398, green: 0.523, blue: 0.285, alpha: 1.0)

// Good
let dingleyGreen = UIColor(red: 0.398, green: 0.523, blue: 0.285, alpha: 1.0)

Images

Do not use #imageLiteral. Sometimes, the image is not shown properly on Xcode.

// Bad
let image = #imageLiteral(resourceName: "image-name")

// Good
let image = UIImage(named: "image-name")

Localization

Localization is required regardless of the number of supported languages. Therefore adding an extra language won’t cause any difficulty in the future.
Keep all strings in Localizable.strings file. Do not use storyboard localization
For localizable string keys, use 3-level domain naming scheme with camel case: feature.useCase.description. Do not use snake case or any other cases to avoid ambiguity.
```
// Bad
"Expiry date" = "Expiry date";
"OK" = "OK";

// Good
"booking.confirmation.expiry_date" = "Expiry date";
"general.button.ok" = "OK";
```

Project Structure

Organize .xcodeproj: Folder structure must reflect the logical structure of the project. Do not put all view controllers into a separate folder and all models into another one. Keep close related objects together.
Keep file structure in sync with .xcodeproj.
One .m / .swift == One class. No extra classes allowed.

Check the Project Structure.

Objects and Structures

Prefer Swift native types over NSObject.

Prefer value types to reference types for lightweight data types or until you explicitly need reference semantics.

// Bad
final class Coordinate {
    var x: CGFloat
    var y: CGFloat
}

// Good
struct Coordinate {
    var x: CGFloat
    var y: CGFloat
}

Prefer let over var as it indicates directly that the property cannot be changed, and that makes it easier for other team members to understand the intention. Always use var only when it’s required to be changed. Otherwise, go for let.
Define classes final by default.
Expose only methods and variables that are meant to be exposed. Hide internal implementation by using the private access specifier.
Keep life cycle methods such as deinit, viewDidLoad, viewWillAppear, etc., at the top of the class body.
Prefer declaring init with deinit right below it if required.

Design Patterns

Many design patterns have distinctive declaration styles. Being consistent in method naming helps other developers to understand your intentions, relations between objects even without reading the code itself.

Delegate, Data Source

Always add the sender to method signatures:

// Bad
func parserDidEndParsingNode(_ node: Node)

// Good
func parser(_ parser: Parser, didEndParsingNode node: Node)

Do not use verbs in past form. Use did + Verb in present form. The purpose is to avoid exotic forms of irregular verbs.

Target-Action

Always add the sender to the method signatures.

Use did as a prefix to describe how the action is triggered.

// Bad
@objc func showCart(_ sender: Any?)

// Good
@objc func didSelectCart(_ sender: UIButton)

Listener

For methods which are called by NotificationCenter, always add the notification parameter to the signature.

// Bad
func applicationDidEnterForeground()

// Good
func applicationDidEnterForeground(_ notification: Notification)

Code clarity & Best practices

Method and variable naming

Good code has a high signal/noise ratio. To declare methods and variables, use as little information as required to understand their responsibility.

A good rule of thumb is that, when declaring methods and variables that require a comment to explain what they are, it usually indicates that its name might not be clear enough. However, it could depend on the case and couldn’t apply to every case. Use it as an indicator. But, in the end, it leaves to the developer’s judgment upon the case.

Avoid large initialization

Initialize objects only with required parameters. Avoid large init methods. Do not init objects with delegate.

Avoid creating large protocols

Avoid creating large protocols. Each protocol must describe a single responsibility. Many small protocols are better than one large.

Naming classes should be straightforward

Avoid words with unclear meaning, such as Common, Utils, Helper, Custom. The name of a class must leave no questions about its task.

// Bad
DataManager, StringUtils, PriceHelper, CustomStepper

// Good
DataStorage, Formatter, PriceCalculator, StepperWithCount

Be wary of creating large structs

Generally, value types are better than reference types in terms of performance as they get allocated in the stack. So there’s no need for the reference counting overhead.

Keep in mind that, once struct contains at least one reference type, its advantage over using class will be nullified, or might even get worse. Since struct is a pass-by-value, so its properties will need to be copied over and over when passing. This results in reference counting doing the job more than just using class.

But, the trade-off of value semantic could be worth enough to ignore the performance gain sometimes depending on how big the struct is. In that case, COW (Copy-on-write) should be implemented.