Swift only way to prevent NSKeyedUnarchiver.decodeObject crash?

Question

NSKeyedUnarchiver.decodeObject will cause a crash / SIGABRT if the original class is unknown. The only solution I have seen to catching this issue

Answer 1

When NSKeyedUnarchiver encounters unknown classes, unarchiver(_:cannotDecodeObjectOfClassName:originalClasses:) delegate method is called.

The delegate may, for example, load some code to introduce the class to the runtime and return the class, or substitute a different class object. If the delegate returns nil, unarchiving aborts and the method raises an NSInvalidUnarchiveOperationException.

So, you can implement the delegate like this:

class MyUnArchiverDelegate: NSObject, NSKeyedUnarchiverDelegate {

    // This class is placeholder for unknown classes.
    // It will eventually be `nil` when decoded.
    final class Unknown: NSObject, NSCoding  {
        init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) { super.init(); return nil }
        func encodeWithCoder(aCoder: NSCoder) {}
    }

    func unarchiver(unarchiver: NSKeyedUnarchiver, cannotDecodeObjectOfClassName name: String, originalClasses classNames: [String]) -> AnyClass? {
        return Unknown.self
    }
}

Then:

let unarchiver = NSKeyedUnarchiver(forReadingWithData: dat)
let delegate = MyUnArchiverDelegate()
unarchiver.delegate = delegate

unarchiver.decodeObjectForKey("root")
// -> `nil` if the root object is unknown class.

---

ADDED:

I didn't noticed that NSCoder has extension with more swifty methods:

extension NSCoder {
    @warn_unused_result
    public func decodeObjectOfClass(cls: DecodedObjectType.Type, forKey key: String) -> DecodedObjectType?
    @warn_unused_result
    @nonobjc public func decodeObjectOfClasses(classes: NSSet?, forKey key: String) -> AnyObject?
    @warn_unused_result
    public func decodeTopLevelObject() throws -> AnyObject?
    @warn_unused_result
    public func decodeTopLevelObjectForKey(key: String) throws -> AnyObject?
    @warn_unused_result
    public func decodeTopLevelObjectOfClass(cls: DecodedObjectType.Type, forKey key: String) throws -> DecodedObjectType?
    @warn_unused_result
    public func decodeTopLevelObjectOfClasses(classes: NSSet?, forKey key: String) throws -> AnyObject?
}

You can:

do {
    try unarchiver.decodeTopLevelObjectForKey("root")
    // OR `unarchiver.decodeTopLevelObject()` depends on how you archived.
}
catch let (err) {
    print(err)
}
// -> emits something like:
// Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4864 "*** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver decodeObjectForKey:]: cannot decode object of class (MyProject.MyClass) for key (root); the class may be defined in source code or a library that is not linked" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=*** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver decodeObjectForKey:]: cannot decode object of class (MyProject.MyClass) for key (root); the class may be defined in source code or a library that is not linked}