How to use data decoded from JSON in SwiftUI - json

Question

Problem
The data is successfully decoded from Reddit’s api and put into the variable theUser inside the .onAppear {…}, but when I try to use it I keep getting nil values.
Code
struct ContentView: View {
#State var didAppear = false
#State var theUser = getNilUser()
var body: some View {
Text("User Profile")
Text(theUser.data.subreddit.display_name_prefixed ?? "No name found")
.onAppear(perform: {
theUser = getUser(withName: "markregg")
})
}
func getUser(withName username: String) -> user {
if !didAppear {
if let url = URL(string: "https://www.reddit.com/user/\(username)/about.json") {
do {
let data = try Data(contentsOf: url)
do {
let decodedUser = try JSONDecoder().decode(user.self, from: data)
return decodedUser
} catch {
print(error)
}
} catch {
print(error)
}
}
didAppear = true
}
return getNilUser()
}
}
Edit: I’m very new to this so if I made a stupid mistake I’m sorry

Answer 1

You can't get JSON data like that. You have to execute a HTTP request using the URLSession class in order to get the data and parse it.
let username = "markregg"
let url = URL(string: "https://www.reddit.com/user/\(username)/about.json")!
URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) { data, response, error in
if let error = error {
print(error)
} else if let data = data {
do {
let decodedUser = try JSONDecoder().decode(User.self, from: data)
} catch {
print(error)
}
} else {
print("Request failed")
}
}.resume()
Another thing to note is that URLSession methods are asynchronous. In simple terms it means they take some time to execute and return the result. So you can't use a simple return statement like return decodedUser to get the result right away. Look into how to use URLSession more.