Swift 3 + Alamofire + AlamofireObjectMapper + Realm

Aug 23, 2017 swift realm

This is a summary of my talk at CocoaHeads Sthlm, April 3 2017, where I talked about using Alamofire, AlamofireObjectMapper and Realm to talk to an api, map its responses, retry and adapt requests and then use Realm to create offline support layer by persisting data locally.

In this post, I’ll recreate the entire app from scratch, with some modifications.

Update information

I have written a new post that uses Swift 4.2 instead of Swift 3. It also changes some fundamental things and is more in line with modern Swift, so you should check it out instead of this post.

Video

You can watch the original talk here. The talk focuses more on concepts than code, so that talk and this post complete each other pretty well.

Prerequisites

For this tutorial, I expect that you know how CocoaPods works. I will use terms like podfile, expecting you to know what it means.

Disclaimer

In large app projects, I prefer to extract as much code and logic as possible to separate libraries, which I then use as decoupled building blocks. For instance, I would keep domain logic in a domain library that doesn’t know anything about the app. In this small project, however, I will keep it all in a single target.

I use to separate public and private functions and any interface implementations into extensions as well, but will skip that pattern in this demo, so that we get as little code and conventions as possible.

Why use a static api?

In the app, we’ll use a static api to fetch movies. The api is a static Jekyll site with a small movie collection, that lets us grab top rated and top grossing movies, as well as single movies by id.

The limited api hopefully lets us focus on Alamofire and Realm instead of having to understand an external api, set up a developer account, handle auth logic etc.

Step 1 - Define the domain model

Start by creating a clean Xcode project. I went with a simple iOS storyboard app, but you can set it up however you like. We can then start by defining the domain model.

The app will fetch movie data from our api. A Movie has basic info about the movie as well as a cast array property of Actor objects. For simplicity, Actor only has a name and is used to show how easy recursive mapping is with Alamofire.

To avoid coupling the app to concrete types, let’s define the model as protocols. Create a Domain folder in the project root, add a Model folder to it then add these two files to Model:

// Movie.swift

import Foundation

protocol Movie {
    
    var id: Int { get }
    var name: String { get }
    var year: Int { get }
    var releaseDate: Date { get }
    var grossing: Int { get }
    var rating: Double { get }
    var cast: [Actor] { get }
}

// Actor.swift

import Foundation

protocol Actor {
    
    var name: String { get }
}

As you’ll see later, the app will only handle protocols, not concrete types. This makes it easy to switch out the implementations used by the app, whenever needed.

Update Since this was written, I have started using plain structs for data types instead of protocols, and instead have different structs for the api model and the local domain model for the app. Mapping from api-specific to app-specific types requires more code, but is a lot better.

Step 2 - Define the domain logic

Now, let’s describe how the app should fetch movies from the api. Add a Services folder to Domain, then add this file:

// MovieService.swift

import Foundation

typealias MovieResult = (_ movie: Movie?, _ error: Error?) -> ()
typealias MoviesResult = (_ movies: [Movie], _ error: Error?) -> ()

protocol MovieService: class {
    
    func getMovie(id: Int, completion: @escaping MovieResult)
    func getTopGrossingMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult)
    func getTopRatedMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult)
}

Basically, this service protocol tells us that a movie service will let us get movies asynchronously (well, a completion block implies it, but doesn’t enforce async) - both single movies by id as well as top grossing and top rated movie collections.

Step 3 - Create an api specific domain model

Before we can add an api specific implementation to the project, we must add two pods to podfile - Alamofire and AlamofireObjectMapper. Run pod install, then open the created workspace.

Now create an Api folder in the project root, add a Model folder to it and add these files to Model:

// ApiMovie.swift

import ObjectMapper

class ApiMovie: Movie, Mappable {
    
    required public init?(map: Map) {}
    
    var id = 0
    var name = ""
    var year = 0
    var releaseDate = Date(timeIntervalSince1970: 0)
    var grossing = 0
    var rating = 0.0
    var cast: [Actor] { return _cast }
    
    private var _cast = [ApiActor]()
    
    func mapping(map: Map) {
        id <- map["id"]
        name <- map["name"]
        year <- map["year"]
        releaseDate <- (map["releaseDate"], DateTransform.custom)
        grossing <- map["grossing"]
        rating <- map["rating"]
        _cast <- map["cast"]
    }
}

// ApiActor.swift

import ObjectMapper

class ApiActor: Actor, Mappable {
    
    required public init?(map: Map) {}

    var name = ""
    
    func mapping(map: Map) {
        name <- map["name"]
    }
}

These classes implement the domain model, with additional mapping. ApiActor is straightforward, while ApiMovie can be further described:

releaseDate is parsed with DateTransform. We may have to adjust this later.
Movie has an [Actor] array, but the mapping requires [ApiActor]. We thus use a private _cast property for mapping and have a calculated cast property.

If we have set things up properly, we should now be able to point Alamofire to a valid url and recursively parse movie data with little effort.

Step 4 - Setup the core api logic

Before we create an api-specific MovieService implementation, let’s setup some core api logic in the api folder, to define how to communicate with the api.

Managing api environments

Since we often have to use different api environments in test and prod, I use to have an enum to define api endpoints. Even though we only have a single endpoint in this app, I still prefer to have it in place:

// ApiEnvironment.swift

import Foundation

enum ApiEnvironment: String { 
    
    case
    production = "http://danielsaidi.com/presentation_2017-04-03_AlamofireRealm/api/"
    
    var url: String {
        return rawValue
    }
}

Managing api routes

With this environment in place, we can list available api routes in another enum:

// ApiRoute.swift

enum ApiRoute { 
    
    case
    movie(id: Int),
    topGrossingMovies(year: Int),
    topRatedMovies(year: Int)
    
    var path: String {
        switch self {
        case .movie(let id): return "movies/\(id)"
        case .topGrossingMovies(let year): return "movies/topGrossing/\(year)"
        case .topRatedMovies(let year): return "movies/topRated/\(year)"
        }
    }
    
    func url(for environment: ApiEnvironment) -> String {
        return "\(environment.url)/\(path)"
    }
}

Since year and id are dynamic route segments, we use parametered enum cases.

Managing api context

I usually have an ApiContext class that holds api-specific information for the app, such as tokens and environments. If you use a singleton, every context-based api service is automatically affected when the context is modified.

Let’s create an ApiContext protocol and a non-persisted implementation in a new Context folder:

// ApiContext.swift

import Foundation

protocol ApiContext: class {
    
    var environment: ApiEnvironment { get set }
}

// NonPersistedApiContext.swift

import Foundation

class NonPersistentApiContext: ApiContext {
    
    init(environment: ApiEnvironment) {
        self.environment = environment
    }
    
    var environment: ApiEnvironment
}

We can now inject this context into all api-specific service implementations. If we later want to create a persistent context, e.g. one that saves token data in UserDefault, we just have to create another implementation, then replace the implementation we use in our app.

Specifying basic api behavior

To simplify how to talk with the api using Alamofire, let’s create a base class for our api-based services. Add this file to a Services sub folder:

// AlamofireService.swift

class AlamofireService {    
    
    init(context: ApiContext) {
        self.context = context
    }
    
    
    var context: ApiContext
    
    
    func get(at route: ApiRoute, params: Parameters? = nil) -> DataRequest {
        return request(
            at: route, 
            method: .get, 
            params: params, 
            encoding: URLEncoding.default)
    }
    
    func post(at route: ApiRoute, params: Parameters? = nil) -> DataRequest {
        return request(
            at: route, 
            method: .post, 
            params: params, 
            encoding: JSONEncoding.default)
    }
    
    func put(at route: ApiRoute, params: Parameters? = nil) -> DataRequest {
        return request(
            at: route, 
            method: .put, 
            params: params, 
            encoding: JSONEncoding.default)
    }
    
    func request(at route: ApiRoute, method: HTTPMethod, params: Parameters?, encoding: ParameterEncoding) -> DataRequest {
        return Alamofire.request(
            route.url(for: context.environment), 
            method: method, 
            parameters: params, 
            encoding: encoding)
        .validate()
    }
}

Restricting our services to only request ApiRoute ensures that the app doesn’t make any unspecified requests. If you need to call custom URLs, I suggest adding a .custom case to the ApiRoute enum.

Ok, that was a pretty long setup, but I think that we are now ready to load some movies from the api.

Step 5 - Create an api-based movie service

Let’s create an api-based movie service and fetch some movies from our api! Just add this file to the Services sub folder, next to AlamofireService:

import Alamofire
import AlamofireObjectMapper

class AlamofireMovieService: AlamofireService, MovieService {
    
    func getMovie(id: Int, completion: @escaping MovieResult) {
        get(at: .movie(id: id)).responseObject {
            (res: DataResponse<ApiMovie>) in
            completion(res.result.value, res.result.error)
        }
    }
    
    func getTopGrossingMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        get(at: .topGrossingMovies(year: year)).responseArray {
            (res: DataResponse<[ApiMovie]>) in
            completion(res.result.value ?? [], res.result.error)
        }
    }
    
    func getTopRatedMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        get(at: .topRatedMovies(year: year)).responseArray {
            (res: DataResponse<[ApiMovie]>) in
            completion(res.result.value ?? [], res.result.error)
        }
    }
}

As you see, the implementation is super-simple. It just performs get requests on the routes and specifies a return type. Alamofire and AlamofireObjectMapper then take care of fetching and mapping responses.

As you can see getMovie uses responseObject, while the other functions use responseArray instead. This is because a single movie is returned as single object, while top grossing and top rated movies are returned as arrays. If these arrays were instead parts of a response object (recommended), you would have to specify a new api model that can map that response, then use responseObject. This would give you a lot more future flexibility, so I’d suggest that you avoid using arrays in your api.

Step 6 - Perform your very first request

We will now setup our app to fetch data from the api. Remove all the boilerplate code and add this to your ViewController:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    let env = ApiEnvironment.production
    let context = NonPersistentApiContext(environment: env)
    let service = AlamofireMovieService(context: context)
    service.getTopGrossingMovies(year: 2016) { (movies, error) in
        if let error = error {
            return print(error.localizedDescription)
        }
        print("Found \(movies.count) movies:")
        movies.forEach { print("   \($0.name)") }
    }
}

Before you can run this code, you must allow the app to perform external requests, which you do by adding this to Info.plist (in a real app, you should specify the exact domains your app allows):

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

Run the app. If everything is correctly setup, it should print our the following:

Found 10 movies:
   Finding Dory
   Rouge One - A Star Wars Story
   Captain America - Civil War
   The Secret Life of Pets
   The Jungle Book
   Deadpool
   Zootopia
   Batman v Superman - Dawn of Justice
   Suicide Squad
   Doctor Strange

If you see this in Xcode’s log, the app loads movie data from the api. Well done!

Now change the print format for each movie to look like this:

movies.forEach {
    print("   \($0.name) (\($0.releaseDate))") 
}

The app should now output the following instead:

Found 10 movies:
   Finding Dory (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Rouge One - A Star Wars Story (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Captain America - Civil War (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   The Secret Life of Pets (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   The Jungle Book (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Deadpool (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Zootopia (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Batman v Superman - Dawn of Justice (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Suicide Squad (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)
   Doctor Strange (1970-01-01 00:33:36 +0000)

Oooops! Seems like the date parsing does not work. I TOLD you that we would have fix this. Let’s do it.

Step 7 - Adjust date parsing

The problem is that the api uses a different date format than expected. This can be solved by replacing the DateTransform. Create this DateTransform extension and place it in an Extensions folder:

// DateTransform_Custom.swift

import ObjectMapper

public extension DateTransform {
    
    public static var custom: DateFormatterTransform {
        let formatter = DateFormatter()
        formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
        formatter.timeZone = TimeZone(secondsFromGMT: 0)
        return DateFormatterTransform(dateFormatter: formatter)
    }
}

Now change the releaseDate mapping in the ApiMovie class to look like this:

releaseDate <- (map["releaseDate"], DateTransform.custom)

Problem solved! The app should now output the following instead:

Found 10 movies:
   Finding Dory (2016-06-17 00:00:00 +0000)
   Rouge One - A Star Wars Story (2016-12-16 00:00:00 +0000)
   Captain America - Civil War (2016-05-06 00:00:00 +0000)
   The Secret Life of Pets (2016-07-08 00:00:00 +0000)
   The Jungle Book (2016-04-15 00:00:00 +0000)
   Deadpool (2016-02-12 00:00:00 +0000)
   Zootopia (2016-03-04 00:00:00 +0000)
   Batman v Superman - Dawn of Justice (2016-03-25 00:00:00 +0000)
   Suicide Squad (2016-08-05 00:00:00 +0000)
   Doctor Strange (2016-11-05 00:00:00 +0000)

If you inspect the other properties, you will see that they are correctly parsed as well. Time to celebrate! …then return here for some database persistency.

Step 8 - Create a Realm-specific domain model

When you get data from an api, it doesn’t hurt to store some data in a database, e.g. for offline support. A very convenient database engine is Realm.

Add a Realm folder to the application root, then add a Model and a Services folder to it. Now, let’s create…wait! Before we can use Realm, we have to grab it from CocoaPods and add it to the project.

Add RealmSwift to podfile, then add this bottommost:

post_install do |installer|
    installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
        target.build_configurations.each do |config|
            config.build_settings['SWIFT_VERSION'] = '3.0'
        end
    end
end

After running pod install, we can now create Realm-specific models that will either be created manually as we map and persist data from the api, or automatically as we fetch data from the database.

Realm will take care of the latter case, but we have to find a way to easily map api objects to Realm objects. To fix this, just add these files to the Model folder:

// RealmMovie.swift

import RealmSwift

class RealmMovie: Object, Movie {
    
    convenience required public init(copy obj: Movie) {
        self.init()
        id = obj.id
        name = obj.name
        year = obj.year
        releaseDate = obj.releaseDate
        grossing = obj.grossing
        rating = obj.rating
        _cast.append(contentsOf: obj.cast.map { RealmActor(copy: $0) })
    }
    

    dynamic var id = 0
    dynamic var name = ""
    dynamic var year = 0
    dynamic var releaseDate = Date(timeIntervalSince1970: 0)
    dynamic var grossing = 0
    dynamic var rating = 0.0
    var cast: [Actor] { return Array(_cast) }
    
    var _cast = List<RealmActor>()


    override class func primaryKey() -> String? {
        return "id"
    }
}

// RealmActor.swift

import RealmSwift

class RealmActor: Object, Actor {
    
    convenience required public init(copy obj: Actor) {
        self.init()
        name = obj.name
    }
    

    dynamic var name = ""
    

    override class func primaryKey() -> String? {
        return "name"
    }
}

Both classes inherit Realm’s Object class and have a convenience initializer that copies properties from another instance of the protocol they implement.

Like in the api model, RealmActor is pretty straightforward, while RealmMovie is more complex. It has a private _cast property, which is used as the backing value for cast. _cast is a Realm List<RealmActor>, while cast is a Swift [Actor], just like in the protocol.

Step 9 - Create a Realm-specific movie service

Now let’s add a Realm-specific MovieService that lets us store movies from the api in Realm. Add this file to the Services folder:

// RealmMovieService.swift

import RealmSwift

class RealmMovieService: MovieService {
    
    init(baseService: MovieService) {
        self.baseService = baseService
    }
    
    
    private let baseService: MovieService
    
    private var realm: Realm { return try! Realm() }
    
    
    func getMovie(id: Int, completion: @escaping MovieResult) {
        getMovieFromDb(id: id, completion: completion)
        getMovieFromService(id: id, completion: completion)
    }
    
    func getTopGrossingMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        getTopGrossingMoviesFromDb(year: year, completion: completion)
        getTopGrossingMoviesFromService(year: year, completion: completion)
    }
    
    func getTopRatedMovies(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        getTopRatedMoviesFromDb(year: year, completion: completion)
        getTopRatedMoviesFromService(year: year, completion: completion)
    }
    
    
    private func getMovieFromDb(id: Int, completion: @escaping MovieResult) {
        let obj = realm.object(ofType: RealmMovie.self, forPrimaryKey: id)
        completion(obj, nil)
    }
    
    private func getMovieFromService(id: Int, completion: @escaping MovieResult) {
        baseService.getMovie(id: id) { (movie, error) in
            self.persist(movie)
            completion(movie, error)
        }
    }
    
    private func getTopGrossingMoviesFromDb(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        let objs = realm.objects(RealmMovie.self).filter("year == \(year)")
        let sorted = objs.sorted { $0.grossing > $1.grossing }
        completion(Array(sorted), nil)
    }
    
    private func getTopGrossingMoviesFromService(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        baseService.getTopGrossingMovies(year: year) {  (movies, error) in
            self.persist(movies)
            completion(movies, error)
        }
    }
    
    private func getTopRatedMoviesFromDb(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        let objs = realm.objects(RealmMovie.self).filter("year == \(year)")
        let sorted = objs.sorted { $0.rating > $1.rating }
        completion(Array(sorted), nil)
    }
    
    private func getTopRatedMoviesFromService(year: Int, completion: @escaping MoviesResult) {
        baseService.getTopRatedMovies(year: year) {  (movies, error) in
            self.persist(movies)
            completion(movies, error)
        }
    }
    
    private func persist(_ movie: Movie?) {
        guard let movie = movie else { return }
        persist([movie])
    }
    
    private func persist(_ movies: [Movie]) {
        let objs = movies.map { RealmMovie(copy: $0) }
        try! realm.write {
            realm.add(objs, update: true)
        }
    }
}

As you can see, RealmMovieService’s initializer requires another MovieService instance. Why?

RealmMovieService is a so called decorator, which uses a base implementation of a protocol it implements, to extend the base implementation with its on logic. In this case, our baseService is an AlamofireMovieService, but the decorator shouldn’t know about how the base service works, just what the protocol promises.

In this case, RealmMovieService will try to get data from the database, but at the same time, it will also try to get data from the base service. When the base service completes, RealmMovieService saves any data it receives. It then calls the completion block to notify its caller about the new data.

Disclaimer: This is an intentionally simple design. RealmMovieService always loads data from the database and from the base service. In a real app, you’d probably have some logic to determine if calling the base service is needed.

Step 10 - Put Realm into action

Let’s give whatever we have now a try. Modify viewDidLoad to look like this:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    let env = ApiEnvironment.production
    let context = NonPersistentApiContext(environment: env)
    let baseService = AlamofireMovieService(context: context)
    let service = RealmMovieService(baseService: baseService)
    var invokeCount = 0
    service.getTopGrossingMovies(year: 2016) { (movies, error) in
        invokeCount += 1
        if let error = error {
            print("ERROR: \(error.localizedDescription)")
        } else {
            print("Found \(movies.count) movies (callback #\(invokeCount))")
        }
    }
}

In the code above, we rename the Alamofire service to baseService, then create a Realm service into which we inject baseService. The app is still loading top grossing movies using a service, but now it will first check the database then call the api. However, the app does not care about this. It only cares about the protocol, not how it is implemented (in the code above, it actually DOES know of the concrete implementations, but we’ll fix that later).

The output will be the following, the first time we run the app with this setup:

Found 0 movies  (callback #1)
Found 10 movies (callback #2)

This happens because the database has no data, while the api will load 10 movies. If you run the app again, the output should be:

Found 10 movies (callback #1)
Found 10 movies (callback #2)

This happens because the database now has data, which means that both completions return movies.

Now, kill your Internet connection and call getTopRatedMovies instead of getTopGrossingMovies (Alamofire will cache the previous result). If you run the app again, the output should be:

Found 10 movies (callback #1)
ERROR: The Internet connection appears to be offline.

This happens because the database data can still be loaded, while the api can’t be called since the Internet connection is dead.

We now have an app with offline support, that only refreshes its data whenever a call to the api provides new data. All we had to do was change two lines that determine which service implementation we use.

Step 11 - Retry failing requests

In the real world, a user most often has to authenticate her/himself in order to use some parts of an api. Authentication often returns a set of tokens, commonly an auth token and a refresh token (but how this works is up to the api).

If the auth token and refresh token pattern is used, authentication could look something like this:

If no tokens are available and a request fails with an HTTP 401, the user may have to login (if the request is mandatory). If so, show a login screen/prompt.
If tokens are available, the app should request the api with the auth token.
If an auth token-based request fails with an HTTP 401, the auth token has most probably expired. The app should then save any requests that fail with 401 and automatically use the refresh token to request new tokens from the api.
If the refresh request succeeds, the app should parse the new tokens from the response and retry any failed requests with these new tokens. It should use the new tokens from now on.
If the refresh request fails, the app should delete all tokens and logout the user. If the app requires a logged in user, the app should show a login screen.

Alamofire 4 makes this kind of logic easy to implement, since it has a RequestRetrier protocol that we can implement and inject into Alamofire. The retrier will be notified about all failing requests, and lets you determine if a request should be retried or not.

We will demonstrate this by faking a failing auth. First, add an auth route to ApiRoute, and have it return auth as path. Our static api will always return the same “auth token” when this route is called.

Second, add this file to Domain/Services:

// AuthService.swift

import Foundation

typealias AuthResult = (_ token: String?, _ error: Error?) -> ()

protocol AuthService: class {

    func authorizeApplication(completion: @escaping AuthResult)
}

This is a really simple protocol that defines how the app is to authorize itself. Before we implement it, we have to add a way to store any auth tokens we receive.

Disclaimer: As an app grows, I find it easier to separate the app into context related parts instead of class types. In other words, instead of the Model and Services grouping, the app should be grouped into Movies and Authentication groups instead.

Ok, back to storing auth tokens. Remember what I told you about the ApiContext earlier? Well, it’s a perfect place to store tokens, so let’s do that.

First, add an authToken property to the ApiContext protocol:

var authToken: String? { get set }

Make sure to add this property to NonPersistentApiContext as well:

var authToken: String?

Now, let’s add an Alamofire-based AuthService implementation to Api/Services:

// AlamofireAuthService.swift

import Alamofire
import AlamofireObjectMapper

class AlamofireAuthService: AlamofireService, AuthService {
    
    func authorizeApplication(completion: @escaping AuthResult) {
        get(at: .auth).responseString { [weak self] (res: DataResponse<String>) in
            if let token = res.result.value {
                self?.context.authToken = token
            }
            completion(res.result.value, res.result.error)
        }
    }
}

If the request above succeeds, the token will be saved in our api context, which makes it available to all future api requests.

Now, let’s retry some requests! Add this file to the Api folder:

import Alamofire

class ApiRequestRetrier: RequestRetrier {
    
    init(context: ApiContext, authService: AuthService) {
        self.context = context
        self.authService = authService
    }
    
    
    private let authService: AuthService
    private let context: ApiContext
    private var isAuthorizing = false
    private var retryQueue = [RequestRetryCompletion]()
    
    
    func should(
        _ manager: SessionManager,
        retry request: Request,
        with error: Error,
        completion: @escaping RequestRetryCompletion) {
        
        guard
            shouldRetryRequest(with: request.request?.url),
            shouldRetryResponse(with: request.response?.statusCode)
            else { return completion(false, 0) }
        
        authorize(with: completion)
    }
    
    
    private func authorize(with completion: @escaping RequestRetryCompletion) {
        print("Authorizing application...")
        retryQueue.append(completion)
        guard !isAuthorizing else { return }
        isAuthorizing = true
        authService.authorizeApplication { (token, error) in
            self.printAuthResult(token, error)
            self.isAuthorizing = false
            self.context.authToken = token
            let success = token != nil
            self.retryQueue.forEach { $0(success, 0) }
            self.retryQueue.removeAll()
        }
    }

    private func printAuthResult(_ token: String?, _ error: Error?) {
        if let error = error {
            return print("Authorizing failed: \(error.localizedDescription)")
        } 
        if let token = token {
            return print("Authorizing succeded: \(token)")
        } 
        print("No token received - failing!")
    }

    private func shouldRetryRequest(with url: URL?) -> Bool {
        guard let url = url?.absoluteString else { return false }
        let authPath = ApiRoute.auth.path
        return !url.contains(authPath)
    }
    
    private func shouldRetryResponse(with statusCode: Int?) -> Bool {
        return true // statusCode == 401
    }
}

When a request fails, Alamofire will ask the retrier if it should be retried. The retrier will trigger a retry if the request isn’t a failing auth (read more about the commented out 401 later). If not, it will just let the request fail, as it should.

If a request should be retried, it’s added it to a retry queue. The retrier then triggers an authorization. Once it completes, the retrier checks if it succeeded. If so, all queued requests are retried. If not, all queued requests fail and the retry queue is cleared.

Note that this is completely hidden from the user as well as the app itself. The retrier works under the hood, tightly connected to Alamofire’s internal workings. It just notifies the app if the authorization fails, by failing all requests.

Inject the retrier into Alamofire by adding the following to our viewDidLoad (note that you have to add import Alamofire topmost as well):

let manager = SessionManager.default
manager.retrier = ApiRequestRetrier(context: context, authService: authService)

In the real world, a 401 status code is an indication that tokens should be refreshed. If this refresh fails, a 401 indicates that the user has to log in, since the tokens are invalid. Here, however, we will never get a 401. We therefore have to trigger these mechanisms by doing the following:

Kill your connection and perform a clean install, to remove all stored data.
Add a breakpoint to the retrier’s authService.authorizeApplication call.
Run the app. The app should now fail the request and activate this breakpoint.
Bring the connection back online and resume the app.
This should make the auth request succeed and have Alamofire retry the request.

That’s it! Alamofire should now retry any failing request that are not auth ones.

Step 12 - Adapt all Alamofire requests

Sometimes, you have to add custom headers to every request you make to an api. A common scenario is to add Accept information, auth tokens etc.

To adapt Alamofire requests before they are sent, you just have to implement the RequestAdapter protocol and inject it into Alamofire. Add this file to the Api folder:

// ApiRequestAdapter.swift

import Alamofire

class ApiRequestAdapter: RequestAdapter {
    
    public init(context: ApiContext) {
        self.context = context
    }
    
    private let context: ApiContext
    
    func adapt(_ request: URLRequest) throws -> URLRequest {
        guard let token = context.authToken else { return request }
        var request = request
        request.setValue(token, forHTTPHeaderField: "AUTH_TOKEN")
        return request
    }
}

As you can see, the adapter just adds any existing token to the request header. You can then inject the adapter into Alamofire by adding the following to viewDidLoad:

manager.adapter = ApiRequestAdapter(context: context)

That’s it! Alamofire should now add the auth token to all requests, if it exists.

Step 13 - Dependency Injection

I won’t do this here, since it just add even more complexity to an already long tutorial. In the demo app, however, I have an IoC folder in which I use a library called Dip to manage app dependencies.

With Dip in place, the view controller becomes a lot cleaner, with the benefit that the view controller no longer knows anything about the implementations used in the app:

import UIKit
import Alamofire

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        reloadData(self)
    }
    
    
    lazy var movieService: MovieService = IoC.resolve()
    
    
    private var movies = [Movie]()
    
    
    @IBOutlet weak var tableView: UITableView? {
        didSet {
            tableView?.delegate = self
            tableView?.dataSource = self
        }
    }
    
    @IBOutlet weak var dataPicker: UISegmentedControl?
    
    
    @IBAction func reloadData(_ sender: Any) {
        let index = dataPicker?.selectedSegmentIndex ?? 0
        index == 0
            ? movieService.getTopGrossingMovies(year: 2016, completion: moviesCompletion)
            : movieService.getTopRatedMovies(year: 2016, completion: moviesCompletion)
    }
    
    private func moviesCompletion(_ movies: [Movie], _ error: Error?) {
        if let error = error { fatalError(error.localizedDescription) }
        self.movies = movies
        self.tableView?.reloadData()
    }
}

extension ViewController: UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate {
    
    func numberOfSections(in tableView: UITableView) -> Int {
        return 1
    }
    
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
        return movies.count
    }
    
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "Cell", for: indexPath)
        let movie = movies[indexPath.row]
        let names = movie.cast.map { $0.name }
        cell.textLabel?.text = "\(movie.name) (\(movie.year))"
        cell.detailTextLabel?.text = names.joined(separator: ", ")
        return cell
    }
}

The result looks like this:

And…

That’s a wrap!

Well done! You have created an app with abstract protocols, then added Alamofire, object mapping and Realm to the mix. You have also added request retry and adapt logic using the RequestRetrier and RequestAdapter protocols. Wow!

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesistate to throw your thoughts and ideas at me. Hit me up on Twitter at @danielsaidi, if you want to discuss this further.