Passing Data in Swift - model-view-controller

Question

I have been looking for an answer for this, but have only found answers for segues.
I have viewController1 with a button that segues to viewController2. There is no code for this, I set it up through Interface builder. On viewController2 I have a button that dismisses itself with
self.dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion, nil)
I want to pass a string from viewController2 back to viewController1 when the view is dismissed. How do I go about doing this? Also, I am using swift.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

There are two common patterns, both of which eliminate the need for viewController2 to know explicitly about viewController1 (which is great for maintainability):
Create a delegate protocol for your for viewController2 and set viewController1 as the delegate. Whenever you want to send data back to viewController1, have viewController2 send the "delegate" the data
Setup a closure as a property that allows passing the data. viewController1 would implement that closure on viewController2 when displaying viewController2. Whenever viewController2 has data to pass back, it would call the closure. I feel that this method is more "swift" like.
Here is some example code for #2:
class ViewController2 : UIViewController {
var onDataAvailable : ((data: String) -> ())?
func sendData(data: String) {
// Whenever you want to send data back to viewController1, check
// if the closure is implemented and then call it if it is
self.onDataAvailable?(data: data)
}
}
class ViewController1 : UIViewController {
func doSomethingWithData(data: String) {
// Do something with data
}
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue!, sender: AnyObject!) {
// When preparing for the segue, have viewController1 provide a closure for
// onDataAvailable
if let viewController = segue.destinationViewController as? ViewController2 {
viewController.onDataAvailable = {[weak self]
(data) in
if let weakSelf = self {
weakSelf.doSomethingWithData(data)
}
}
}
}
}

Answer 2

I used the code from the first answer in a transition between controllers WITHOUT prepareForSegue and worked for me as well.
Here's the sample code.
The First View Controller:
#IBAction func dpAgendaClick(sender:UIBarButtonItem) {
///instantiating view controller with identifier
if let datePickerViewController = storyboard?.instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier("DatePickerViewController")
as? DatePickerViewController {
///bring instantiated view controller to front
self.presentViewController(datePickerViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
///wrapping the data returned
datePickerViewController.onDataFiltroAvailable = {[weak self]
(dataFiltro) in
if let weakSelf = self {
///use dataFiltro here
}
}
The second View Controller:
var onDataFiltroAvailable: ((dataFiltro: String) -> ())?
///private var
var dataFiltro: String = ""
///the returning data is obtained on the datePickerChanged event
#IBAction func datePickerChanged(sender: UIDatePicker) {
let dateFormatter = NSDateFormatter()
dateFormatter.dateStyle = NSDateFormatterStyle.ShortStyle
dateFormatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd"
dataFiltro = dateFormatter.stringFromDate(datePicker.date)
}
///dismiss the controller on button click
#IBAction func dpOkClick(sender: UIButton) {
///"returning" the data
self.onDataFiltroAvailable?(dataFiltro: dataFiltro)
dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)
}

Answer 3

(Swift 2.1, Xcode 7, iOS9)
If you don't want it to be tightly coupled only between 2 ViewControllers,
You can also use the Notification Design Pattern (Post & Observe), which is mainly used to pass on the same object/information from one VC to multiple View Controllers.
For your scenario :
In VC2.swift :
#IBAction func BackBtn(sender: UIButton) {
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().postNotificationName("ThisIsTheMessage", object: nil, userInfo:["ObjectBeingSent":yourObject])
}
And in VC1.swift :
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, selector: Selector("yourFunction:"), name: "ThisIsTheMessage", object: nil)
}
func yourFunction(theNotification : NSNotification) {
if let extractInfo = theNotification.userInfo {
//code to use the object sent from VC2, by extracting the object details
}
}
Common Practise is:
Pass data forward -> Use PrepareForSegue
Pass data backward to the previous View Controller-> Protocol and Delegation
Pass data across multiple View Controllers -> Notifications : Post and Observe(observe in all the View controllers where you are using the object details)