Save custom objects into UserDefaults(Swift 4)

Posted on | Edited on

We have many ways to store and retrieve persistent data in iOS but let try to store a custom object into UserDefaults with Codable in Swift 4.

We have a custom object like this:

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struct User: Codable {
    var id: String
    var name: String
    var age: Int
}

And now, let define a object:

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let user = User(id: "abc123", name: "Tim can Cook", age: 13)

Finally, we have to encode it using JSONEncoder then it can be persist into UserDefaults.

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let kUser = "kUser"

if let encoded = try? JSONEncoder().encode(user) {
    UserDefaults.standard.set(encoded, forKey: "kUser")
}

if let userData = UserDefaults.standard.data(forKey: "kUser"),
    let user = try? JSONDecoder().decode(User.self, from: userData) {

    dump(user)
}

Now you can see the log on the console:

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▿ __lldb_expr_10.User
  - id: "ABCD1234"
  - name: "Tim can Cook"
  - age: 13

That’s it! You can download the final playground file here.