Anonymous class in swift

Question

Is there an equivalent syntax or technique for Anonymous class in Swift? Just for clarification Anonymous class in Java example here - http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial

Answer 1

This is what I ended up doing (Observer pattern). You can use closures in a similar way you would use anonymous classes in Java. With obvious limitations of course.

class Subject {
   // array of closures
   var observers: [() -> Void] = []

   // @escaping says the closure will be called after the method returns
   func register(observer: @escaping () -> Void) {
       observers.append(observer)
   }

   func triggerEvent() {
       observers.forEach { observer in
            observer()
       }
   }
}

var subj = Subject()
// you can use a trailing closure
subj.register() {
    print("observerd")
}

// or you can assign a closure to a variable so you can maybe use the reference to removeObserver() if you choose to implement that method
var namedObserver: () -> Void = {
    print("named observer")
}
subj.register(observer: namedObserver)

subj.triggerEvent()
// output:
// observerd
// named observer