How to format text inside text views

Paul Hudson @twostraws September 18th 2019

Fully updated for Xcode 11 GM

SwiftUI’s text views have an optional formatter parameter that lets us customize the way data is presented inside the label. This is important because often values are updated for us when something happens in our program, so by attaching a formatter SwiftUI can make sure our data looks right on our behalf.

For example, this defines a date formatter and uses it to make sure a task date is presented in human-readable form:

struct ContentView: View {
    static let taskDateFormat: DateFormatter = {
        let formatter = DateFormatter()
        formatter.dateStyle = .long
        return formatter
    }()

    var dueDate = Date()

    var body: some View {
        Text("Task due date: \(dueDate, formatter: Self.taskDateFormat)")
    }
}

That will display something like “Task due date: June 5 2019”.

How to format text inside text views

Similar solutions…