Swift @escaping and Completion Handler

Swift Completion Handler Escaping & Non-Escaping:

As Bob Lee explains in his blog post Completion Handlers in Swift with Bob:

Assume the user is updating an app while using it. You definitely want to notify the user when it is done. You possibly want to pop up a box that says, “Congratulations, now, you may fully enjoy!”

So, how do you run a block of code only after the download has been completed? Further, how do you animate certain objects only after a view controller has been moved to the next? Well, we are going to find out how to design one like a boss.

Based on my expansive vocabulary list, completion handlers stand for

Do stuff when things have been done

Bob’s post provides clarity about completion handlers (from a developer point of view it exactly defines what we need to understand).

@escaping closures:

When one passes a closure in function arguments, using it after the function’s body gets executed and returns the compiler back. When the function ends, the scope of the passed closure exist and have existence in memory, till the closure gets executed.

There are several ways to escaping the closure in containing function:

• Storage: When you need to store the closure in the global variable, property or any other storage that exist in the memory past of the calling function get executed and return the compiler back.

• Asynchronous execution: When you are executing the closure asynchronously on despatch queue, the queue will hold the closure in memory for you, can be used in future. In this case you have no idea when the closure will get executed.

When you try to use the closure in these scenarios the Swift compiler will show the error:

For more clarity about this topic you can check out this post on Medium.

Adding one more points , which every ios developer needs to understand :

1. Escaping Closure : An escaping closure is a closure that’s called after the function it was passed to returns. In other words, it outlives the function it was passed to.
2. Non-escaping closure : A closure that’s called within the function it was passed into, i.e. before it returns.

Here's a small class of examples I use to remind myself how @escaping works.

class EscapingExamples: NSObject {

    var closure: (() -> Void)?

    func storageExample(with completion: (() -> Void)) {
        //This will produce a compile-time error because `closure` is outside the scope of this
        //function - it's a class-instance level variable - and so it could be called by any other method at
        //any time, even after this function has completed. We need to tell `completion` that it may remain in memory, i.e. `escape` the scope of this
        //function.
        closure = completion
        //Run some function that may call `closure` at some point, but not necessary for the error to show up.
        //runOperation()
    }

    func asyncExample(with completion: (() -> Void)) {
        //This will produce a compile-time error because the completion closure may be called at any time
        //due to the async nature of the call which precedes/encloses it.  We need to tell `completion` that it should
        //stay in memory, i.e.`escape` the scope of this function.
        DispatchQueue.global().async {
            completion()
        }
    }

    func asyncExample2(with completion: (() -> Void)) {
        //The same as the above method - the compiler sees the `@escaping` nature of the
        //closure required by `runAsyncTask()` and tells us we need to allow our own completion
        //closure to be @escaping too. `runAsyncTask`'s completion block will be retained in memory until
        //it is executed, so our completion closure must explicitly do the same.
        runAsyncTask {
            completion()
        }
    }





    func runAsyncTask(completion: @escaping (() -> Void)) {
        DispatchQueue.global().async {
            completion()
        }
    }

}