@Published property wrapper not working on subclass of ObservableObject

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)")
            }
        }
    }
}

Solution 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)")
                }
            }
        }
    }

Solution 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)

Solution 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