How do I use diffable data sources in Swift?

Using diffable data sources in Swift is a powerful way to manage your collection views and table views efficiently. Diffable data sources allow you to handle updates and changes to your data with less complexity and boilerplate code. This makes your UI code cleaner and more maintainable.

The following example demonstrates how to implement a basic table view using a diffable data source in Swift.

import UIKit struct Item: Hashable { let identifier: UUID let title: String } class ViewController: UIViewController { var tableView: UITableView! var dataSource: UITableViewDiffableDataSource! var items: [Item] = [] override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() setupTableView() setupDataSource() applySnapshot() } func setupTableView() { tableView = UITableView(frame: view.bounds) view.addSubview(tableView) tableView.register(UITableViewCell.self, forCellReuseIdentifier: "cell") } func setupDataSource() { dataSource = UITableViewDiffableDataSource(tableView: tableView) { (tableView, indexPath, item) -> UITableViewCell? in let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "cell", for: indexPath) cell.textLabel?.text = item.title return cell } } func applySnapshot() { var snapshot = NSDiffableDataSourceSnapshot() snapshot.appendSections([0]) items = [Item(identifier: UUID(), title: "Item 1"), Item(identifier: UUID(), title: "Item 2"), Item(identifier: UUID(), title: "Item 3")] snapshot.appendItems(items) dataSource.apply(snapshot, animatingDifferences: true) } }

diffable data source Swift UICollectionView UITableView iOS development data management