Saving an array of structs to userDefaults

Question

In my app I have the user take a picture of an item of clothing, then give it a tag describing what type it is (pants, shirt, shoes, etc). I then take this info and save it into a struct Item. After that, I put the recently made Item into an array of Items. I'm struggling with how to save this array of Items to UserDefaults so I can load back when the app is closed.

I've tried adding Codable to my struct but that just brought up more issues. I wanted to update the UserDefaults every time the user adds a new item to the array. I plan to do it in saveItemButton function (shown below).

var itemsArray: [Item] = []

//.pants, .shirt, .shoes, .hat, .extra, .jacket
var itemType: clothingType? = nil

@IBAction func saveItemButton(_ sender: Any) {
    if(itemType != nil && imageView.image != nil){
        saveImage(imageName: ("item" + "\(itemsArray.count)"))
        let item = Item(itemType: itemType!, itemName: ("item" + "\(itemsArray.count)"))


        itemsArray.append(item)

        //let defaults = UserDefaults.standard
        //defaults.set(itemsArray, forKey: "SavedItemArray")
    }
}

Here is my struct in a separate swift file:

import Foundation
import UIKit


struct Item{
    var itemType: clothingType
    var itemName: String
    //var itemImage: UIImage?
}

enum clothingType{
    case pants
    case shirt
    case jacket
    case shoes
    case hat
    case extra
}

And here is where I would load the itemArray from UserDefaults:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    //        let defaults = UserDefaults.standard
    //        let array = defaults.array(forKey: "SavedItemArray")  as? [Item] ?? [Item]()
    //        itemsArray = array
}

Looking to be able to save and load an array of Item to UserDefaults.

Answer 1

Like this:

struct Item : Codable {
    var itemType: clothingType
    var itemName: String
}

enum clothingType : String, Codable {
    case pants
    case shirt
    case jacket
    case shoes
    case hat
    case extra
}

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        let defaults = UserDefaults.standard
        if let data = defaults.data(forKey: "SavedItemArray") {
            let array = try! PropertyListDecoder().decode([Item].self, from: data)
        }
    }
}

Of course I suppose now you're wondering how we got the data into user defaults in the first place. Like this:

    let array : [Item] = // whatever
    if let data = try? PropertyListEncoder().encode(array) {
        UserDefaults.standard.set(data, forKey: "SavedItemArray")
    }