Are there maximum limits to VStack?

Question

I started with a clean project and added 5 buttons and 5 spacers in a VStack and all is good. When I add the 6th spacer at the bottom, the code suddenly won't compile with the error: "Ambiguous reference to member 'buildBlock()'".

What is causing this error? Is this a bug related to SwiftUI? Or is it a feature? It's not the first time I notice that VStack or HStack is limited in the number of entries, is there some documentation around this?

Not exactly confidence inspiring, should I switch back to UIKit?

Answer 1

SwiftUI uses ViewBuilder to construct the views that make up many SwiftUI views, like VStack, HStack, List, etc. If you take a look at the ViewBuilder documentation, you'll see that the buildBlock function has many copies, each with a different amount of views as arguments. The function with the most amount of views only takes in 10 views which is why you are seeing the limitation that you observed. A way to work around this is by using Groups:

VStack {     Group {         Text("Placeholder 0")         Text("Placeholder 1")         Text("Placeholder 2")         Text("Placeholder 3")         Text("Placeholder 4")         Text("Placeholder 5")         Text("Placeholder 6")         Text("Placeholder 7")         Text("Placeholder 8")         Text("Placeholder 9")     }     Group {         Text("Other Placeholder 10")         Text("Other Placeholder 11")         Text("Other Placeholder 12")         Text("Other Placeholder 13")         Text("Other Placeholder 14")         Text("Other Placeholder 15")         Text("Other Placeholder 16")         Text("Other Placeholder 17")         Text("Other Placeholder 18")         Text("Other Placeholder 19")     } } 

Although if you want 20 views that are really similar to each other, it is encouraged to use something like a ForEach to avoid making your views too bloated. The above workaround should only be used if the >10 views are truly unique. Even then, a more SwiftUI-y method would be to split up these views into more smaller views:

VStack {     SingleDigitPlaceholders()     TeensPlaceholders() }  struct SingleDigitPlaceholders: View {     var body: some View {         ForEach(0..<10) { i in             Text("Placeholder \(i)")         }     } } struct TeensPlaceholders: View {     var body: some View {         ForEach(10..<20) { i in             Text("Other Placeholder \(i)")         }     } } 

Of course, in this specific example, you can just have the two ForEachs in the original view, but in more complex cases, the point still stands. For example, in a form with many elements (e.g. in a job application form: first name, last name, address, phone number text fields, education dropdown menus, date fields, etc.) you can still split up one view into smaller components (in the job application example - a personal information view, an educational information view, etc.).

Answer 2

You can have at most 10 children in your VStack (and ZStack, HStack, and so forth). This is strictly related to their implementation and to the implementation of the @ViewBuilder closures in general. Look at the interfaces here below (you can find them through xCode, I slightly simplified them in order to be more readable):

public struct ViewBuilder {    
    /// Builds an empty view from an block containing no statements, `{ }`.
    public static func buildBlock() -> EmptyView

    /// Passes a single view written as a child view (e..g, `{ Text("Hello") }`) through
    /// unmodified.
    public static func buildBlock<Content>(_ content: Content) -> Content where Content : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {    
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1) -> TupleView<(C0, C1)> where C0 : View, C1 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4, _ c5: C5) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View, C5 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4, _ c5: C5, _ c6: C6) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View, C5 : View, C6 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4, _ c5: C5, _ c6: C6, _ c7: C7) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View, C5 : View, C6 : View, C7 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4, _ c5: C5, _ c6: C6, _ c7: C7, _ c8: C8) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View, C5 : View, C6 : View, C7 : View, C8 : View
}

extension ViewBuilder {
    public static func buildBlock<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C9>(_ c0: C0, _ c1: C1, _ c2: C2, _ c3: C3, _ c4: C4, _ c5: C5, _ c6: C6, _ c7: C7, _ c8: C8, _ c9: C9) -> TupleView<(C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, C9)> where C0 : View, C1 : View, C2 : View, C3 : View, C4 : View, C5 : View, C6 : View, C7 : View, C8 : View, C9 : View
}

As you can see you can build those kind of views with at most 10 children. Each buildBlock method takes an exact number of views as parameters. This is because @ViewBuilder closures, at least at the moment, don't support variadic arguments.

A workaround can be:

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Group {
                //10 views here
            }

            Group {
                //10 views here
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

I have 6 views after added the Group around my views, I'm still getting the Extra argument in call error.

So this is what I did to fix the error.

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Group {
                //3 views here
            }

            Group {
                //3 views here
            }
        }
    }
}