How can I build a swiftUI photo picker

Generated on 4/25/2025

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To build a SwiftUI photo picker, you can leverage the existing SwiftUI capabilities to create a user-friendly interface for selecting photos. While the specific details of implementing a photo picker in SwiftUI were not directly covered in the provided context, you can follow these general steps to create a photo picker in SwiftUI:

Use PHPickerViewController: SwiftUI does not have a built-in photo picker, but you can use PHPickerViewController from the PhotosUI framework to present a photo picker. You can integrate this with SwiftUI using UIViewControllerRepresentable.
Create a UIViewControllerRepresentable: This protocol allows you to wrap a UIKit view controller, such as PHPickerViewController, for use in SwiftUI.
Handle the Selection: Implement the delegate methods to handle the user's selection and pass the selected images back to your SwiftUI view.
Display the Picker: Use a SwiftUI view, such as a button, to present the photo picker when tapped.

Here's a basic example of how you might set this up:

import SwiftUI
import PhotosUI

struct PhotoPicker: UIViewControllerRepresentable {
    @Binding var selectedImage: UIImage?

    func makeUIViewController(context: Context) -> PHPickerViewController {
        var configuration = PHPickerConfiguration()
        configuration.filter = .images
        configuration.selectionLimit = 1

        let picker = PHPickerViewController(configuration: configuration)
        picker.delegate = context.coordinator
        return picker
    }

    func updateUIViewController(_ uiViewController: PHPickerViewController, context: Context) {}

    func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
        Coordinator(self)
    }

    class Coordinator: NSObject, PHPickerViewControllerDelegate {
        var parent: PhotoPicker

        init(_ parent: PhotoPicker) {
            self.parent = parent
        }

        func picker(_ picker: PHPickerViewController, didFinishPicking results: [PHPickerResult]) {
            picker.dismiss(animated: true)

            guard let provider = results.first?.itemProvider, provider.canLoadObject(ofClass: UIImage.self) else { return }

            provider.loadObject(ofClass: UIImage.self) { [weak self] image, _ in
                self?.parent.selectedImage = image as? UIImage
            }
        }
    }
}

struct ContentView: View {
    @State private var selectedImage: UIImage?

    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            if let image = selectedImage {
                Image(uiImage: image)
                    .resizable()
                    .scaledToFit()
            } else {
                Text("Select an image")
            }

            Button("Pick a Photo") {
                // Present the photo picker
            }
            .sheet(isPresented: .constant(selectedImage == nil)) {
                PhotoPicker(selectedImage: $selectedImage)
            }
        }
    }
}

This example demonstrates how to create a simple photo picker using SwiftUI and PHPickerViewController. You can customize the picker configuration and handle the selected image as needed for your app.

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