How to add an object to SwiftData in Swift

Oscar de la Hera Gomez
Three flowers that represent Swift, Swift Data and Xcode.  The text "Add an Object to a SwiftData Persistent Container" sits beneath them.

A step by step guide on inserting a new object to a SwiftData persistent storage container using SwiftUI, UIKit or AppKit.

A screenshot of an iPhone showing the result of the sample app available on our open source swift GitHub repository.

The following tutorial has been made available, along with a simple app for demonstrating SwiftData, through the tutorial/swift-data-basics branch on our Open Source Swift Starter Project.

git clone git@github.com:delasign/swift-starter-project.git

Step One: Setup the Project

A screenshot of Xcode highlighting the code that is available in a snippet below which allows you to check if a SwiftData object of a specific Id exists within the SwiftData persistent storage container.

Follow the tutorials linked below to add SwiftData to your project, along with the ability to search for all objects, a specific object as well as if an object exists.

Step Two: Add the Create Functionality

A screenshot of Xcode showing the sample functionality that adds a new SwiftData object to a persistent container. The code snippet is available below.

Add functionality similar that below to the project to add new objects to a SwiftData persistent storage container.

We recommend adding this to a file called DataCoordinator+SwiftData.swift, where DataCoordinator is the name of the MainActor singleton that manages the SwiftData.

Please note that the code snippet found above uses a custom error that we created to track SwiftData errors. To learn how to create custom errors, consult the tutorial below.

Step Three: Test

A screenshot of an iPhone showing the result of the sample app available on our open source swift GitHub repository.

Add functionality to add new SwiftData objects by calling the function created in Step Two.

Then, run the app and test that it works.

Looking to learn more about things you can do with SwiftData, Swift or XCode ?

Consult our quick start guide or search our blog to find educational content on learning how to use SwiftData, Swift or XCode.

Any Questions?

We are actively looking for feedback on how to improve this resource. Please send us a note to inquiries@delasign.com with any thoughts or feedback you may have.
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