SwiftGen – Statically reference resources

In this article we can see how we can statically reference strings.

Let’s look on the following example:

As we described in the http://trikalabs.com/project-mess-1-no-localised-strings/ article we can use localised files so we can have all the user facing strings in one place and also to support localisation easier.

Let’s crate in a similar way our localised file:

Now we can use them in our view:

But there are still error prone since we have to hardcode the key.

Let’s now see how we can use the SwiftGen to enable us to statically reference the strings.

1. Install SwiftGen. In this article we will do it through homebrew
   
   Swift

   brew install swiftgen

   1	brew install swiftgen

2. Next create a yml file for the configuration
   
   Swift

   strings: inputs: - Accessible/Localizable.strings outputs: - templateName: structured-swift5 params: publicAccess: true enumName: Strings output: Accessible/Strings+Generated.swift

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   strings:   inputs:     - Accessible/Localizable.strings   outputs:     - templateName: structured-swift5       params:         publicAccess: true         enumName: Strings       output: Accessible/Strings+Generated.swift

3. Drag the file into Xcode, but don’t add in any target.
4. Now we can add a run script in the build phases
   
   
   Swift

   if which swiftgen >/dev/null; then swiftgen else echo "warning: SwiftGen not installed, download it from https://github.com/SwiftGen/SwiftGen" fi

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   if which swiftgen >/dev/null; then   swiftgen else   echo "warning: SwiftGen not installed, download it from https://github.com/SwiftGen/SwiftGen" fi

5. By building the project we can see the autogenerated file
   
6. Lets add it to the main target, and let’s open it
   
7. And we can now use it to statically refer to our strings
   
   Swift

   struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { HStack { Text(Strings.welcomeGreeting) Spacer() Text(Strings.welcomeWeatherUpdateText) } .padding() } }

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   struct ContentView: View {     var body: some View {         HStack {             Text(Strings.welcomeGreeting)             Spacer()             Text(Strings.welcomeWeatherUpdateText)         }         .padding()     } }

SwiftGen allow us to create and use our own templates. We will explore this option in another article.

Resources:
https://github.com/SwiftGen/SwiftGen
https://www.raywenderlich.com/23709326-swiftgen-tutorial-for-ios