Miss Electric Eel 2016 RxSwift: ReactiveX for Swift

Travis CI platforms pod Carthage compatible Swift Package Manager compatible

Rx is a generic abstraction of computation expressed through Observable<Element> interface.

This is a Swift version of Rx.

It tries to port as many concepts from the original version as possible, but some concepts were adapted for more pleasant and performant integration with iOS/macOS environment.

Cross platform documentation can be found on ReactiveX.io.

Like the original Rx, its intention is to enable easy composition of asynchronous operations and event/data streams.

KVO observing, async operations and streams are all unified under abstraction of sequence. This is the reason why Rx is so simple, elegant and powerful.

I came here because I want to …

… understand
… install
… hack around
… interact
… compare
… find compatible
… see the broader vision
  • Does this exist for Android? RxJava
  • Where is all of this going, what is the future, what about reactive architectures, how do you design entire apps this way? Cycle.js - this is javascript, but RxJS is javascript version of Rx.

Usage

Here’s an example In Action
Define search for GitHub repositories … 
let searchResults = searchBar.rx.text.orEmpty
    .throttle(0.3, scheduler: MainScheduler.instance)
    .distinctUntilChanged()
    .flatMapLatest { query -> Observable<[Repository]> in
        if query.isEmpty {
            return .just([])
        }
        return searchGitHub(query)
            .catchErrorJustReturn([])
    }
    .observeOn(MainScheduler.instance)
… then bind the results to your tableview 
searchResults
    .bind(to: tableView.rx.items(cellIdentifier: "Cell")) {
        (index, repository: Repository, cell) in
        cell.textLabel?.text = repository.name
        cell.detailTextLabel?.text = repository.url
    }
    .disposed(by: disposeBag)

Requirements

Installation

Rx doesn’t contain any external dependencies.

These are currently the supported options:

Manual

Open Rx.xcworkspace, choose RxExample and hit run. This method will build everything and run the sample app

CocoaPods

Tested with pod --version: 1.3.1

# Podfile
use_frameworks!

target 'YOUR_TARGET_NAME' do
    pod 'RxSwift',    '~> 4.0'
    pod 'RxCocoa',    '~> 4.0'
end

# RxTest and RxBlocking make the most sense in the context of unit/integration tests
target 'YOUR_TESTING_TARGET' do
    pod 'RxBlocking', '~> 4.0'
    pod 'RxTest',     '~> 4.0'
end

Replace YOUR_TARGET_NAME and then, in the Podfile directory, type:

$ pod install

Carthage

Tested with carthage version: 0.26.2

Add this to Cartfile

github "ReactiveX/RxSwift" ~> 4.0

$ carthage update

Swift Package Manager

Tested with swift build --version: Swift 4.0.0-dev (swiftpm-13126)

Create a Package.swift file.

// swift-tools-version:4.0

import PackageDescription

let package = Package(
  name: "RxTestProject",
  dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxSwift.git", "4.0.0" ..< "5.0.0")
  ],
  targets: [
    .target(name: "RxTestProject", dependencies: ["RxSwift", "RxCocoa"])
  ]
)

$ swift build

To build or test a module with RxTest dependency, set TEST=1. (RxSwift >= 3.4.2)

$ TEST=1 swift test

Manually using git submodules

  • Add RxSwift as a submodule
$ git submodule add git@github.com:ReactiveX/RxSwift.git
  • Drag Rx.xcodeproj into Project Navigator
  • Go to Project > Targets > Build Phases > Link Binary With Libraries, click + and select RxSwift-[Platform] and RxCocoa-[Platform] targets

References