How to make a Swift enum with associated values equatable

Stamp picture Stamp · Jul 12, 2018 · Viewed 20.1k times · Source

I have an enum of associated values which I would like to make equatable for testing purposes, but do not know how this pattern would work with an enum case with more than one argument.

For example, summarised below I know the syntax for making heading equatable. How would this work for options, which contains multiple values of different types?

enum ViewModel {
    case heading(String)
    case options(id: String, title: String, enabled: Bool)
}

func ==(lhs: ViewModel, rhs: ViewModel) -> Bool {
    switch (lhs, rhs) {
    case (let .heading(lhsString), let .heading(rhsString)):
        return lhsString == rhsString
    case options...
    default:
        return false
    }
}

I know Swift 4.1 can synthesize conformance for Equatable for us, but at present I am not able to update to this version.

Answer

Martin R picture Martin R · Jul 12, 2018

SE-0185 Synthesizing Equatable and Hashable conformance has been implemented in Swift 4.1, so that it suffices do declare conformance to the protocol (if all members are Equatable):

enum ViewModel: Equatable {
    case heading(String)
    case options(id: String, title: String, enabled: Bool)
}

For earlier Swift versions, a convenient way is to use that tuples can be compared with ==.

You many also want to enclose the compatibility code in a Swift version check, so that the automatic synthesis is used once the project is updated to Swift 4.1:

enum ViewModel: Equatable {
    case heading(String)
    case options(id: String, title: String, enabled: Bool)
    
    #if swift(>=4.1)
    #else
    static func ==(lhs: ViewModel, rhs: ViewModel) -> Bool {
        switch (lhs, rhs) {
        case (let .heading(lhsString), let .heading(rhsString)):
            return lhsString == rhsString
        case (let .options(lhsId, lhsTitle, lhsEnabled), let .options(rhsId, rhsTitle, rhsEnabled)):
            return (lhsId, lhsTitle, lhsEnabled) == (rhsId, rhsTitle, rhsEnabled)
        default:
            return false
        }
    }
    #endif
}