swiftconvenience-methods

How can I make that an object of the same class become the return value of initializer?


I have this function:

extension UIImage {

    static func from(layer: CALayer) -> UIImage? {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(layer.frame.size)
        layer.render(in: UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()!)
        let outputImage: UIImage? = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return outputImage
    }

}

How can I change it into like this?

extension UIImage {

    convenience init(layer: CALayer) {
        self.init();
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(layer.frame.size)
        layer.render(in: UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()!)
        let outputImage: UIImage? = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        self = outputImage; // Error: cannot assign to self: self is immutable
    }

}

I want that the result of UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext() becomes the initiated "self". But the result is already a UIImage. I don't suppose I should use "mutating" in this function?


Solution

  • As the error states UIImage is immutable. What you can do is to get a CGImage from your outputImage and use UIImage init(cgImage: CGImage) initializer to initialize a new image from it:

    extension UIImage {
        convenience init?(layer: CALayer) {
            UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(layer.frame.size, false, 0)
            defer { UIGraphicsEndImageContext() }
            guard let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() else {
                return nil
            }
            layer.render(in: context)
            guard let outputImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()?.cgImage else {
                return nil
            }
            self.init(cgImage: outputImage)
        }
    }