Flight School

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Flight School
Guide to Swift Codable

Make better apps with less code more quickly using Swift Codable.

Chances are that your app interacts with a web service in some capacity. And when it does, the data you’re getting back is most likely JSON.

Codable provides the best way to map those JSON payloads to your Swift models. Thanks to automatic code synthesis from the compiler, tasks that used to take hours of engineering and hundreds of lines of boilerplate can now be done in a few moments — often with little to no additional code.

This book offers a comprehensive look at all aspects of Codable, starting with the basics, and exploring a variety of advanced topics through engaging example projects.

  • Get started with Swift Codable

  • Learn how to navigate corner cases and shape your Codable model to whatever representation comes your way.

  • Adapt Codable to the iTunes Search web API to build the core functionality of a music store app.

  • Build an in-flight ordering app backed by User Defaults, the easiest way to persist data across app launches.

  • Make a luggage scanning app using QR codes and Core Data, and learn the best way to use Core Data with external data sources.

  • Implement a custom encoder for the MessagePack format from scratch, and come away with a deep understanding of binary serialization formats.

About the Author

Mattt is a developer and writer in Portland, Oregon. He worked 3 years at Apple as a technical writer, contributing to The Swift Programming Language, Swift Package Manager, and Swift.org.

Before that, Mattt founded NSHipster, a weekly publication for iOS and macOS developers, and maintained several open source libraries, including Alamofire and AFNetworking.

About Flight School

Founded in 2018, Flight School is an independently-published book series for advanced Swift developers interested in taking their skills to the next level.

Our mission is to write the kinds of programming books we wish we had when we were first starting out — material that connects the computer science theory with practical insights from experience working in the software industry.

…all of that, plus a sprinkle of code samples and trivia from the world of aviation. It’s an unconventional combination, but we think you’re gonna love it. 💙