[swift-users] Decode a JSON object of unknown format into a Dictionary with Decodable in Swift 4

[Kevin Wooten]

> Hi Jon,
> 
> I just joined this mailing list and have tried to catch up on the 
> history of this thread, so please excuse me if I’ve missed something.
> 
> I’m sorry the Codable API at the moment does not answer your needs — 
> you’re clearly not the only one who’s run into this, so let’s see 
> how we can work together to make the API better for everyone.
> For one thing, in the case of grabbing a subtree of JSON as 
> "unevaluated" or "unmapped" (as it appears to be in the metadata case), 
> it should be fairly simple to add a `JSONDecoder.UnevaluatedJSON` type 
> that will allow you to essentially decode that part of the tree as an 
> `Any`. `JSONDecoder` would have knowledge of this type and would be able 
> to return the subtree inside of it — you’d decode a property as 
> `JSONDecoder.UnevaluatedJSON.self` and access the contents through `var 
> value: Any?`, or something similar. This would be simple additive API, 
> which although might not make it in the upcoming betas, should be fairly 
> simple introduce. Would this solve that use case?
> 
> We’re also working on improving `NSISO8601DateFormatter`. I don’t 
> think I saw it in any of your emails — what specific use case are you 
> looking for that it doesn’t at the moment support?
> 
> — Itai


Itai, 

Is this a formal solution that is going to be implemented? This would solve just about every issue I currently have with Decodable.

Two points…

1) Putting it on `JSONDecoder` seems dubious since you’d only have access to `Decoder` (although conditional casting could solve that). It seems adding the method to `Decoder` and using `Decoder.Unevaluated.self` as the requested type, would be more useful. A user could then conditionally cast that value to things like `[String: Any]` and possibly use its contents generically.

2) Matching it with an equivalent on `Encoder` would be great as well.  We take in JSON that has “metaData” like one aforementioned exampled. We then have to send back the equivalent metadata during a subsequent update; without ever inspecting or altering the unevaluated data. Being able encode a `Decoder.Unevaluated` would solve that problem as well.


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