Swift 4 Codable: Converting JSON return String to Int/Date/Float

Question

I'm going through some projects and removing JSON parsing frameworks, as it seems pretty simple to do with Swift 4. I've encountered this oddball JSON return where Ints and Dates are returned as Strings.

I looked at GrokSwift's Parsing JSON with Swift 4, Apple's website, but I don't see anything that jumps out re: changing types.

Apple's example code shows how to change key names, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to change the key type.

Here's what it looks like:

{
    "WaitTimes": [
        {
            "CheckpointIndex": "1",
            "WaitTime": "1",
            "Created_Datetime": "10/17/2017 6:57:29 PM"
        },
        {
            "CheckpointIndex": "2",
            "WaitTime": "6",
            "Created_Datetime": "10/12/2017 12:28:47 PM"
        },
        {
            "CheckpointIndex": "0",
            "WaitTime": "8",
            "Created_Datetime": "9/26/2017 5:04:42 AM"
        }
    ]
}

I've used CodingKey to rename dictionary keys to a Swift-conforming entry, as follows:

struct WaitTimeContainer: Codable {
  let waitTimes: [WaitTime]

  private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
    case waitTimes = "WaitTimes"
  }

  struct WaitTime: Codable {
    let checkpointIndex: String
    let waitTime: String
    let createdDateTime: String

    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
      case checkpointIndex = "CheckpointIndex"
      case waitTime = "WaitTime"
      case createdDateTime = "Created_Datetime"
    }
  }
}

That still leaves me with String that should be Int or Date. How would I go about converting a JSON return that contains an Int/Date/Float as a String to an Int/Date/Float using the Codable protocol?

Answer 1

This is not yet possible as Swift team has provided only String to date decoder in JSONDecoder.

You can always decode manually though:

struct WaitTimeContainer: Decodable {
    let waitTimes: [WaitTime]

    private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
        case waitTimes = "WaitTimes"
    }

    struct WaitTime:Decodable {
        let checkpointIndex: Int
        let waitTime: Float
        let createdDateTime: Date

        init(checkpointIndex: Int, waitTime: Float, createdDateTime:Date) {
            self.checkpointIndex = checkpointIndex
            self.waitTime = waitTime
            self.createdDateTime = createdDateTime
        }

        static let formatter: DateFormatter = {
            let formatter = DateFormatter()
            formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .iso8601)
            formatter.locale = Locale(identifier: "en_US_POSIX")
            formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
            formatter.dateFormat = "MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss a"
            return formatter
        }()

        init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
            let container = try decoder.container(keyedBy: CodingKeys.self)
            let checkpointIndexString = try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .checkpointIndex)
            let checkpointIndex = Int(checkpointIndexString)!

            let waitTimeString = try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .waitTime)
            let waitTime = Float(waitTimeString)!

            let createdDateTimeString =  try container.decode(String.self, forKey: .createdDateTime)

            let createdDateTime = WaitTime.formatter.date(from: createdDateTimeString)!

            self.init(checkpointIndex:checkpointIndex, waitTime:waitTime, createdDateTime:createdDateTime)
        }

        private enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
            case checkpointIndex = "CheckpointIndex"
            case waitTime = "WaitTime"
            case createdDateTime = "Created_Datetime"
        }
    }
}