Mantle

Mantle makes it easy to write a simple model layer for your Cocoa or Cocoa Touch application.

Getting Started

To start building the framework, clone this repository and then run script/bootstrap. This will automatically pull down any dependencies.

The Typical Model Object

What's wrong with the way model objects are usually written in Objective-C?

Let's use the GitHub API for demonstration. How would one typically represent a GitHub issue in Objective-C?

typedef enum : NSUInteger {
    GHIssueStateOpen,
    GHIssueStateClosed
} GHIssueState;

@interface GHIssue : NSObject <NSCoding, NSCopying>

@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSURL *URL;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSURL *HTMLURL;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSNumber *number;
@property (nonatomic, assign, readonly) GHIssueState state;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSString *reporterLogin;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSDate *updatedAt;
@property (nonatomic, strong, readonly) GHUser *assignee;

@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *title;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *body;

- (id)initWithDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dictionary;

@end

@implementation GHIssue

+ (NSDateFormatter *)dateFormatter {
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    dateFormatter.locale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US_POSIX"];
    dateFormatter.dateFormat = @"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'";
    return dateFormatter;
}

- (id)initWithDictionary:(NSDictionary *)dictionary {
    self = [self init];
    if (self == nil) return nil;

    _URL = [NSURL URLWithString:dictionary[@"url"]];
    _HTMLURL = [NSURL URLWithString:dictionary[@"html_url"]];
    _number = dictionary[@"number"];
    
    if ([dictionary[@"state"] isEqualToString:@"open"]) {
        _state = GHIssueStateOpen;
    } else if ([dictionary[@"state"] isEqualToString:@"closed"]) {
        _state = GHIssueStateClosed;
    }

    _title = [dictionary[@"title"] copy];
    _body = [dictionary[@"body"] copy];
    _reporterLogin = [dictionary[@"user"][@"login"] copy];
    _assignee = [[GHUser alloc] initWithDictionary:dictionary[@"assignee"]];

    _updatedAt = [self.class.dateFormatter dateFromString:dictionary[@"updated_at"]];

    return self;
}

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder {
    self = [self init];
    if (self == nil) return nil;

    _URL = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"URL"];
    _HTMLURL = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"HTMLURL"];
    _number = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"number"];
    _state = [coder decodeUnsignedIntegerForKey:@"state"];
    _title = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"title"];
    _body = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"body"];
    _reporterLogin = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"reporterLogin"];
    _assignee = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"assignee"];
    _updatedAt = [coder decodeObjectForKey:@"updatedAt"];

    return self;
}

- (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder {
    if (self.URL != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.URL forKey:@"URL"];
    if (self.HTMLURL != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.HTMLURL forKey:@"HTMLURL"];
    if (self.number != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.number forKey:@"number"];
    if (self.title != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.title forKey:@"title"];
    if (self.body != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.body forKey:@"body"];
    if (self.reporterLogin != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.reporterLogin forKey:@"reporterLogin"];
    if (self.assignee != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.assignee forKey:@"assignee"];
    if (self.updatedAt != nil) [coder encodeObject:self.updatedAt forKey:@"updatedAt"];

    [coder encodeUnsignedInteger:self.state forKey:@"state"];
}

- (id)copyWithZone:(NSZone *)zone {
    GHIssue *issue = [[self.class allocWithZone:zone] init];
    issue->_URL = self.URL;
    issue->_HTMLURL = self.HTMLURL;
    issue->_number = self.number;
    issue->_state = self.state;
    issue->_reporterLogin = self.reporterLogin;
    issue->_assignee = self.assignee;
    issue->_updatedAt = self.updatedAt;

    issue.title = self.title;
    issue.body = self.body;
}

- (NSUInteger)hash {
    return self.number.hash;
}

- (BOOL)isEqual:(GHIssue *)issue {
    if (![issue isKindOfClass:GHIssue.class]) return NO;

    return [self.number isEqual:issue.number] && [self.title isEqual:issue.title] && [self.body isEqual:issue.body];
}

@end

Whew, that's a lot of boilerplate for something so simple! And, even then, there are some problems that this example doesn't address:

If the url or html_url field is missing, +[NSURL URLWithString:] will throw an exception.
There's no way to update a GHIssue with new data from the server.
There's no way to turn a GHIssue back into JSON.
GHIssueState shouldn't be encoded as-is. If the enum changes in the future, existing archives might break.
If the interface of GHIssue changes down the road, existing archives might break.

Why Not Use Core Data?

Core Data solves certain problems very well. If you need to execute complex queries across your data, handle a huge object graph with lots of relationships, or support undo and redo, Core Data is an excellent fit.

It does, however, come with a couple of pain points:

There's still a lot of boilerplate. Managed objects reduce some of the boilerplate seen above, but Core Data has plenty of its own. Correctly setting up a Core Data stack (with a persistent store and persistent store coordinator) and executing fetches can take many lines of code.
It's hard to get right. Even experienced developers can make mistakes when using Core Data, and the framework is not forgiving.

If you're just trying to access some JSON objects, Core Data can be a lot of work for little gain.

Nonetheless, if you're using or want to use Core Data in your app already, Mantle can still be a convenient translation layer between the API and your managed model objects.

MTLModel

Enter MTLModel. This is what GHIssue looks like inheriting from MTLModel:

typedef enum : NSUInteger {
    GHIssueStateOpen,
    GHIssueStateClosed
} GHIssueState;

@interface GHIssue : MTLModel <MTLJSONSerializing>

@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSURL *URL;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSURL *HTMLURL;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSNumber *number;
@property (nonatomic, assign, readonly) GHIssueState state;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSString *reporterLogin;
@property (nonatomic, strong, readonly) GHUser *assignee;
@property (nonatomic, copy, readonly) NSDate *updatedAt;

@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *title;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *body;

@end

@implementation GHIssue

+ (NSDateFormatter *)dateFormatter {
    NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
    dateFormatter.locale = [[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US_POSIX"];
    dateFormatter.dateFormat = @"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'";
    return dateFormatter;
}

+ (NSDictionary *)JSONKeyPathsByPropertyKey {
    return @{
        @"URL": @"url",
        @"HTMLURL": @"html_url",
        @"reporterLogin": @"user.login",
        @"assignee": @"assignee",
        @"updatedAt": @"updated_at"
    };
}

+ (NSValueTransformer *)URLJSONTransformer {
    return [NSValueTransformer valueTransformerForName:MTLURLValueTransformerName];
}

+ (NSValueTransformer *)HTMLURLJSONTransformer {
    return [NSValueTransformer valueTransformerForName:MTLURLValueTransformerName];
}

+ (NSValueTransformer *)stateJSONTransformer {
    NSDictionary *states = @{
        @"open": @(GHIssueStateOpen),
        @"closed": @(GHIssueStateClosed)
    };

    return [MTLValueTransformer reversibleTransformerWithForwardBlock:^(NSString *str) {
        return states[str];
    } reverseBlock:^(NSNumber *state) {
        return [states allKeysForObject:state].lastObject;
    }];
}

+ (NSValueTransformer *)assigneeJSONTransformer {
    return [NSValueTransformer mtl_JSONDictionaryTransformerWithModelClass:GHUser.class];
}

+ (NSValueTransformer *)updatedAtJSONTransformer {
    return [MTLValueTransformer reversibleTransformerWithForwardBlock:^(NSString *str) {
        return [self.dateFormatter dateFromString:str];
    } reverseBlock:^(NSDate *date) {
        return [self.dateFormatter stringFromDate:date];
    }];
}

@end

Notably absent from this version are implementations of <NSCoding>, <NSCopying>, -isEqual:, and -hash. By inspecting the @property declarations you have in your subclass, MTLModel can provide default implementations for all these methods.

The problems with the original example all happen to be fixed as well:

If the url or html_url field is missing, +[NSURL URLWithString:] will throw an exception.

The URL transformer we used (included in Mantle) returns nil if given a nil string.

There's no way to update a GHIssue with new data from the server.

MTLModel has an extensible -mergeValuesForKeysFromModel: method, which makes it easy to specify how new model data should be integrated.

There's no way to turn a GHIssue back into JSON.

This is where reversible transformers really come in handy. +[MTLJSONAdapter JSONDictionaryFromModel:] can transform any model object conforming to <MTLJSONSerializing> back into a JSON dictionary.

If the interface of GHIssue changes down the road, existing archives might break.

MTLModel automatically saves the version of the model object that was used for archival. When unarchiving, -decodeValueForKey:withCoder:modelVersion: will be invoked if overridden, giving you a convenient hook to upgrade old data.

Persistence

Mantle doesn't automatically persist your objects for you. However, MTLModel does conform to <NSCoding>, so model objects can be archived to disk using NSKeyedArchiver.

If you need something more powerful, or want to avoid keeping your whole model in memory at once, Core Data may be a better choice.

License

Mantle is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE.md.