Shouldn't SwiftUI only re-renders if var is used on view?

Question

Created May ’25

Replies 2

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Participants 3

Why is the SwiftUI re-render the UI event if the view does not use the counter like in the example bellow...shouldn't SwiftUI framework be smart enough to detect that??

import SwiftUI

class ViewModel: ObservableObject {
    @Published var counter: Int = 0 // Not used in the view's body
    @Published var displayText: String = "Hello" // Used in the view's body
}

struct ContentView: View {
    @StateObject private var viewModel = ViewModel()
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text(viewModel.displayText) // Depends on displayText
        }
        .onChange(of: viewModel.counter) { newValue in
            print("Counter changed to: \(newValue)")
        }
    }
}

Is there any solution more elegant without using Publishers??

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Answer 1

darkpaw OP

May ’25

Recommended

Line 4: @Published var counter: Int = 0 // Not used in the view's body

Line 15 (inside the view's body): .onChange(of: viewModel.counter) { newValue in

Sorry, but counter is used in the view's body.

Just make it not a @Published var and it probably won't do what you claim it's doing.

3

Answer 2

Vision Pro Engineer OP

Apple

Jun ’25

Hi @Jprophet8991 ,

What @darkpaw said is absolutely correct! I did just want to add one other thing:

If you use Observable, you'd be able to do this:

import SwiftUI
 
@Observable 
final class ViewModel  {
    @ObservationIgnored
    var counter: Int = 0 // Not used in the view's body
    var displayText: String = "Hello" // Used in the view's body
}
 
struct ContentView: View {
    @State private var viewModel = ViewModel()
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text(viewModel.displayText) // Depends on displayText
        }
        .onChange(of: viewModel.counter) { newValue in
            print("Counter changed to: \(newValue)")
        }
    }
}

This way, the view would not re-render when the counter variable is changed.

ObservationIgnored: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/observation/observationignored()

Using Observation also helps with view re-rendering in general:

Updating views based on changes to the observable properties that a view’s body reads instead of any property changes that occur to an observable object, which can help improve your app’s performance.

From: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/migrating-from-the-observable-object-protocol-to-the-observable-macro

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