How do I use async / await in swift?

Question

Overview: I'm geocoding a user input address to use with mapkit and I am unable to wrap my head around using async / await to manage the delay.

I have a SwiftUI view with a textfield that calls a function onSubmit to start the geocoding process ...

                        TextField("Address ...", text: $searchString)
                        .onSubmit {
                            Task {
                                await switchToMap(address: searchString)
                            }
                        }

My switchToMap function ...

    func switchToMap(address: String) async {
    Task {
      locationManager.convertAddress(address: address)
    }
    if let coordinates = locationManager.addressCoordinates {
        locationManager.jumpToPoint(location: coordinates)
    }else{
        print("Something went wrong")
    }
}

LocationManager functions (as relevant)

    func getCoordinates(addressString: String, completionHandler: @escaping(CLLocationCoordinate2D, NSError?) -> Void) {
    let geocoder = CLGeocoder()
    geocoder.geocodeAddressString(addressString) { (placemarks, error) in
        if error == nil {
            if let placemark = placemarks?[0] {
                let location = placemark.location!
                completionHandler(location.coordinate, nil)
                return
        }
            print(error?.localizedDescription ?? "")
            completionHandler(kCLLocationCoordinate2DInvalid, error as NSError?)
    }
}
}

func convertAddress(address: String){
    getCoordinates(addressString: address) { (location, error) in
        if error != nil {
            // Error Handler
            print("Error converting address: \(error?.localizedDescription ?? "")")
            return
        }
        DispatchQueue.main.async {
            self.addressCoordinates = location
            //self.jumpToPoint(location: location)
        }
    }
}

So, how can I make use of async / await to make all this work? I fully expect that there are several issues with this code.

Answer 1

Let us consider CLGeocoder method geocodeAddressString first. That uses a traditional completion handler pattern. To use that in an async method, we need to wrap that in a withCheckedThrowingContinuation :

let geocoder = CLGeocoder()

func placemarks(for string: String) async throws -> [CLPlacemark] {
    try await withCheckedThrowingContinuation { continuation in
        geocoder.cancelGeocode() // cancel prior one if any

        geocoder.geocodeAddressString(string) { placemarks, error in
            guard
                error == nil,
                let placemarks = placemarks?.filter( { $0.location != nil }),
                !placemarks.isEmpty
            else {
                continuation.resume(throwing: error ?? CLError(.geocodeFoundNoResult))
                return
            }

            continuation.resume(returning: placemarks)
        }
    }
}

Note, I pulled the CLGeocoder out of the method and instead made it a property so that I could implement the “cancel prior request, if any” logic.

Also note that I am just fetching the array of CLPlacemark rather than the coordinates, but if you want the coordinates of the first one, you can then do:

func coordinate(for string: String) async throws -> CLLocationCoordinate2D {
    let placemark = try await placemarks(for: string)
        .first { $0.location != nil }

    guard let coordinate = placemark?.location?.coordinate else {
        throw CLError(.geocodeFoundNoResult)
    }

    return coordinate
}

---

Having shown how to wrap the completion-based method in a continuation, we should note that the CLGeocoder allows cancelation, but the above placemarks(for:) implementation will not responded to the cancelation. To do that, we need to wrap the above in a withTaskCancellationHandler :

func placemarks(for string: String) async throws -> [CLPlacemark] {
    try await withTaskCancellationHandler {
        geocoder.cancelGeocode()
    } operation: {
        try await withCheckedThrowingContinuation { continuation in
            geocoder.cancelGeocode() // cancel prior one if any

            geocoder.geocodeAddressString(string) { placemarks, error in
                guard
                    error == nil,
                    let placemarks = placemarks,
                    !placemarks.isEmpty
                else {
                    continuation.resume(throwing: error ?? CLError(.geocodeFoundNoResult))
                    return
                }

                continuation.resume(returning: placemarks)
            }
        }
    }
}

You might not need cancelation at this point, but it is simple and one of those things you should probably add for any cancelable process.

---

For more information about refactoring old code to adopt Swift concurrency, see WWDC 2021 video Swift concurrency: Update a sample app .