Book Image

Swift 4 Protocol-Oriented Programming - Third Edition

By : Jon Hoffman
Book Image

Swift 4 Protocol-Oriented Programming - Third Edition

By: Jon Hoffman

Overview of this book

Swift has become the number one language used in iOS and macOS development. The Swift standard library is developed using protocol-oriented programming techniques, generics, and first-class value semantics; therefore, every Swift developer should understand these powerful concepts and how to take advantage of them in their application design. This book will help you understand the differences between object-oriented programming and protocol-oriented programming. It will demonstrate how to work with protocol-oriented programming using real-world use cases. You will gain a solid knowledge of the various types that can be used in Swift and the differences between value and reference types. You will be taught how protocol-oriented programming techniques can be used to develop very flexible and easy-to-maintain code. By the end of the book, you will have a thorough understanding of protocol-oriented programming and how to utilize it to build powerful and practical applications.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Protocol inheritance


Protocols can inherit requirements from one or more additional protocols and then add additional requirements. The following code shows the syntax for protocol inheritance:

protocol ProtocolThree: ProtocolOne, ProtocolTwo { 
  // Add requirements here 
} 

The syntax for protocol inheritance is very similar to class inheritance in Swift, except that we are able to inherit from more than one protocol. Let's see how protocol inheritance works. We will use the FullName protocol that we defined earlier and create a new protocol named Person:

protocol Person: FullName {  
  var age: Int {get set} 
} 

Now, when we create a type that conforms to the Person protocol, we must implement the requirements defined in the Person protocol, as well as the requirements defined in the FullName protocol. As an example, we could define a Student structure that conforms to the Person protocol, as shown in the following code:

struct Student: Person {  
  var firstName = ""  
  var lastName = ""  
  var age = 0 
 
  func getFullName() -> String {  
    return "\(firstName) \(lastName)"
  } 
} 

Note that in the Student structure, we implemented the requirements defined in both the FullName and Person protocols. However, the only protocol specified in the structure definition was the Person protocol. We only needed to list the Person protocol because it inherited all the requirements from the FullName protocol.

Now let's look at a very important concept in the protocol-oriented programming paradigm: Protocol composition.