Hello Evolution,
I’d like to pitch a new idea and see where it would go. Recently I tapped into
a small trap and just now realized that even that non-escaping should have been
the default for closures (SE–0103) there is an exception for that. Apparently
generics don’t follow that rule and a closure like
Optional<() -> Void> or simply (() -> Void)?
is still escaping by default. But that was the half of the story yet. As we all
know and “love” reference lists inside closures, methods don’t have any and we
have to wrap method calls into a weak referenced closure
{ [weak self] in self.foo() }
to avoid strong reference cycles. Maybe you already guess it, I accidentally
didn’t and tapped into the land of strong reference cycles yet again on my
journey.
I’d like to pitch a new way, more like a new type behavior, for closures on how
they could be used differently in order to avoid strong reference cycles but
also providing the ability to use methods without any need to wrap them.
Here is a simple code snippet using RxSwift, which will recreate my issue:
import RxSwift
let test = PublishSubject<Void>()
class A {
let disposeBag = DisposeBag()
func foo() {
test.asObservable()
.subscribe(onNext: self.bar) // The issue is here
.disposed(by: self.disposeBag)
}
func bar() { print("works") }
}
let a = A()
a.foo()
test.onNext(()) // Testing if it works
test.onCompleted() // Some RxSwift stuff
In this case by passing directly the method self.bar we’re capturing self,
which in this situation isn’t our intention at all. To avoid this issue we can
simply wrap the method call into closure:
.subscribe(onNext: { [unowned self] in self.bar() })
(It’s safe to make it unowned because the dispose bag is a member of self.)
What if we had the ability for weak or unowned closures? By that I don’t mean
weak/unowned references to the closures themselves, because they are also
reference types, but an invalidation behavior for the whole closure based on
the _captured_ references. For instance:
let closure1: weak (() -> Void)? = { self.doWhatever() }
let closure2: weak (() -> Void)? = self.doWhatever
If one would now try to call the closure, first it will check if all the
captured objects are still available or not, if not the whole closure in this
case will simply become nil and won’t execute. In case of unowned closures it
will trap. Furthermore it will support the general meaning of weak/unowned and
will not increase the reference counter for *captured objects*.
As you have already noticed, in this case the convention is slightly different
because we must carry the behavior directly with the type.
func subscribe(onNext: weak ((Swift.E) -> Void)?)
If the way of my thinking is correct this idea _could maybe_ fade out the very
common [weak self] in guard let strongSelf = self … pattern.
I personally cannot tell all the technical difficulties this idea might have,
but that’s what the evolution list is for, to collaboratively flesh out the
ideas if they are worth it.
If something like this could be possible it’s probably worth noting that we
might also be able to introduce something like @autoclosure(weak/unowned) to
Swift for consistency.
--
Adrian Zubarev
Sent with Airmail
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