How to improve the readability of Swift code?

In this tutorial, you will learn how to improve code readability in the Swift language.

You can follow a variety of techniques when writing code. By following these methods, you will be able to write more understandable code for yourself and other developers.

Use Comments

This is the most important thing we should do. When writing code, we often write logic and calculations. When we start, we have everything in our minds, but after a month, it's definitely difficult to remember everything, especially in large applications.

The code is usually commented on single lines. As a result, we are better able to understand the code or logic we wrote some time ago. Don't just describe what a line does in your comments; add explanations and insights.

A less widely used type of comment is a block comment. These comments are typically used to put licensing information and copyright information at the top of the file, but they can also be helpful if you need to write multiple lines explaining your code (though it's a good rule of thumb that if you need that many words to explain your code, it probably isn't readable enough).

To make a block comment, start with a forward slash, an asterisk, and then your code. Once you're ready to end the comment, you can simply place an asterisk and then another forward slash.

Code Reusability

Code reuse is one of those programming concepts that can be much more complex than what it first might seem. While it’s easy to argue that code duplication should be avoided at all costs and that implementations should always be reused and shared whenever possible.

Benefits of reusable code

• Saves a lot of lines

• Easy to make changes in one place

• Easy to understand the complete feature

• Low risk of errors

• Maintain coding standards

Meaningful Naming

In Swift, it's most effective to name things based on the role that the object plays in the code. For example, instead of simply using the name apple for a variable of type Apple, if the apple serves as food for an animal, it could be named food instead.

It can sometimes be tempting to give many responsibilities to an object that is supposed to be specialized. This can make your app less modular and more confusing for anyone who's reading the code. Naming your objects based on what they do can help remind you to only give roles to the objects that they're responsible for.

Apple's recommended naming conventions

The names of properties, variables, and constants should be read as nouns.

Uses of Boolean methods and properties should be read as assertions about the receiver.

Protocols that describe what something is should be read as nouns.

Using Design Pattern

In production−grade apps, developers use design patterns to structure their code in a way that can be changed and is also more readable. Let's discuss a few design patterns that you can use in your next iOS app.

As cliché as this may sound, this really is the foundation of how you program your app. Let's say you are building a home, your dream house. This house is five stories high, so if you don't build a strong foundation and follow the blueprints, it will probably just topple over. The foundation of an iOS app is the design pattern or patterns that you choose. Let's look at two of the most commonly used patterns.

Some popular design patterns are below

• MVC − The Model-View-Controller or MVC design pattern is an industry standard. It separates each part of your code into three parts: the model, the view, and the controller. The model is essentially the data of the app. Views are responsible only for visualizing data. The controller receives data from the model, and then sends it to the view that displays it to the user.

• MVVM − Using markup language or GUI code, this architecture enables the development of the user interface to be separated. The full form of MVVM is Model–View–ViewModel. A view model in MVVM is a value converter, which means it is the view model's responsibility to expose the data objects from the Model in a way that objects can be easily managed and presented.

• Singleton − A singleton is a single instance of a class that is present at all times in memory.

Code Organisation

You should organize your files in a proper directory structure. This makes it easy to find and jump to any file without having to search for it. Make a proper directory based on modules in the application. Each module can have a separate folder to organize files related to that module. You can easily navigate to the file with the right code organization.

You can also organize your code at the file level. Like in a single file, there might be many properties and functions along with other things. So you can organize them using code annotations in the file. There are some examples of how to organize code in a file below −

// TODO: <To-Do Item>: Mark any function or properties that need some work on it.
// FIXME: <Issue Title>: Mark your issues with this annotation to fix them later.
// MARK: <Section Title>: Mark your section with this annotation to categorize the code in a file.

Conclusion

As you can see, it's not that difficult to make your code more readable and organized. When you put in the effort to do so, you'll have the benefit of easy-to-modify code, as well as making your code easier for others to understand.