@Published property wrapper not working on subclass of ObservableObject

Question

I have a class conforming to the @ObservableObject protocol and created a subclass from it with it's own variable with the @Published property wrapper to manage state.

It seems that the @published property wrapper is ignored when using a subclass. Does anyone know if this is expected behaviour and if there is a workaround?

I'm running iOS 13 Beta 8 and xCode Beta 6.

Here is an example of what I'm seeing. When updating the TextField on MyTestObject the Text view is properly updated with the aString value. If I update the MyInheritedObjectTextField the anotherString value isn't updated in the Text view.

import SwiftUI

class MyTestObject: ObservableObject {
    @Published var aString: String = ""

}

class MyInheritedObject: MyTestObject {
    @Published var anotherString: String = ""
}

struct TestObserverWithSheet: View {
    @ObservedObject var myTestObject = MyInheritedObject()
    @ObservedObject var myInheritedObject = MyInheritedObject()

    var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                TextField("Update aString", text: self.$myTestObject.aString)
                Text("Value of aString is: \(self.myTestObject.aString)")

                TextField("Update anotherString", text: self.$myInheritedObject.anotherString)
                Text("Value of anotherString is: \(self.myInheritedObject.anotherString)")
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Finally figured out a solution/workaround to this issue. If you remove the property wrapper from the subclass, and call the baseclass objectWillChange.send() on the variable the state is updated properly.

NOTE: Do not redeclare let objectWillChange = PassthroughSubject<Void, Never>() on the subclass as that will again cause the state not to update properly.

I hope this is something that will be fixed in future releases as the objectWillChange.send() is a lot of boilerplate to maintain.

Here is a fully working example:

    import SwiftUI

    class MyTestObject: ObservableObject {
        @Published var aString: String = ""

    }

    class MyInheritedObject: MyTestObject {
        // Using @Published doesn't work on a subclass
        // @Published var anotherString: String = ""

        // If you add the following to the subclass updating the state also doesn't work properly
        // let objectWillChange = PassthroughSubject<Void, Never>()

        // But if you update the value you want to maintain state 
        // of using the objectWillChange.send() method provided by the 
        // baseclass the state gets updated properly... Jaayy!
        var anotherString: String = "" {
            willSet { self.objectWillChange.send() }
        }
    }

    struct MyTestView: View {
        @ObservedObject var myTestObject = MyTestObject()
        @ObservedObject var myInheritedObject = MyInheritedObject()

        var body: some View {
            NavigationView {
                VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                    TextField("Update aString", text: self.$myTestObject.aString)
                    Text("Value of aString is: \(self.myTestObject.aString)")

                    TextField("Update anotherString", text: self.$myInheritedObject.anotherString)
                    Text("Value of anotherString is: \(self.myInheritedObject.anotherString)")
                }
            }
        }
    }

Answer 2

iOS 14.5 resolves this issue.

Combine

Resolved Issues

Using Published in a subclass of a type conforming to ObservableObject now correctly publishes changes. (71816443)

Answer 3

This is because ObservableObject is a protocol, so your subclass must conform to the protocol, not your parent class

Example:

class MyTestObject {
    @Published var aString: String = ""

}

final class MyInheritedObject: MyTestObject, ObservableObject {
    @Published var anotherString: String = ""
}

Now, @Published properties for both class and subclass will trigger view events

Answer 4

UPDATE

This has been fixed in iOS 14.5 and macOS 11.3, subclasses of ObservableObject will correctly publish changes on these versions. But note that the same app will exhibit the original issues when run by a user on any older minor OS version. You still need the workaround below for any class that is used on these versions.

---

The best solution to this problem that I've found is as follows:

Declare a BaseObservableObject with an objectWillChange publisher:

open class BaseObservableObject: ObservableObject {
    
    public let objectWillChange = ObservableObjectPublisher()

}

Then, to trigger objectWillChange in your subclass, you must handle changes to both observable classes and value types:

class MyState: BaseObservableObject {

    var classVar = SomeObservableClass()
    var typeVar: Bool = false {
        willSet { objectWillChange.send() }
    }
    var someOtherTypeVar: String = "no observation for this"

    var cancellables = Set<AnyCancellable>()

    init() {
        classVar.objectWillChange // manual observation necessary
            .sink(receiveValue: { [weak self] _ in
                self?.objectWillChange.send()
            })
            .store(in: &cancellables)
    }
}

And then you can keep on subclassing and add observation where needed:

class SubState: MyState {

    var subVar: Bool = false {
        willSet { objectWillChange.send() }
    }

}

You can skip inheriting BaseObservableObject in the root parent class if that class already contains @Published variables, as the publisher is then synthesized. But be careful, if you remove the final @Published value from the root parent class, all the objectWillChange.send() in the subclasses will silently stop working.

It is very unfortunate to have to go through these steps, because it is very easy to forget to add observation once you add a variable in the future. Hopefully we will get a better official fix.

Answer 5

This happens also when your class is not directly subclass ObservableObject:

class YourModel: NSObject, ObservableObject {

    @Published var value = false {
        willSet {
            self.objectWillChange.send()
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

From my experience, just chain the subclass objectWillChange with the base class's objectWillChange like this:

class GenericViewModel: ObservableObject {
    
}

class ViewModel: GenericViewModel {
    @Published var ...
    private var cancellableSet = Set<AnyCancellable>()
    
    override init() {
        super.init()
        
        objectWillChange
            .sink { super.objectWillChange.send() }
            .store(in: &cancellableSet)
    }
}