Exploring Potential for async Property Wrappers in Swift

Evolution Pitches
1

Hi everyone,

Currently, property wrappers in Swift provide great abstractions for common tasks like validation, caching, and data binding. However, I’ve been wondering whether there’s a way to introduce async property wrappers—something that allows asynchronous actions or network requests directly in a property’s getter or setter.
How do you think this could fit into Swift? Would it make code cleaner, or introduce complexity that could complicate debugging and performance?

Thanks for any help!

1 Like
2

Hi, you can use async (and throwing) property getters since Swift 5.5. I don't think a PropertyWrapper would add much value.

var isSynced: Bool {
    get async {
       await database?.isEntitySynced(self) ?? false
   }
}

Usage: hackingwithswift.com

3

I believe the author is asking here about property wrappers providing their wrappedValue or projectedValue as a computed property with such getter.

IMHO while a nice addition to property wrappers, property wrappers themselves currently feel somewhat like a misfeature in the presence of macros. Not sure if they're worth allocating resources for.

4

You are probably right, sorry.