Debounce

.debounce (Publishers.Debounce) prevents values from flowing downstream if they arrive too quickly. You supply a time interval. When a value arrives from upstream, the operator buffers it and starts an internal timer. If the timer ends without a new value arriving from upstream, the operator passes the value downstream. But if a new value arrives before the timer ends, the operator throws the buffered value away, stores the new value in the buffer, and starts the timer again.

Thus the value that passes downstream is the most recent value that was not followed too soon by another value. A pause is inserted in the stream, because we have to wait the duration of the timer before we know whether another value arrives too soon; typically you’ll set a sufficiently short interval that this won’t be troublesome.

Apple’s example is that you want to respond to the user typing in a UITextField. Let’s say your goal is to look up some information on the network based on what the user types. You can arrange to hear that the user has typed by using a Notification publisher for the text field’s textDidChangeNotification. But you don’t want to hit the network multiple times if the user types many characters in quick succession. The .debounce operator solves the problem; the user needs to type and pause in order for you to proceed to consult the network.

The parameters are (see .delay for more information about these):

for:

The time interval that must elapse without another value from upstream if this value is to be delivered.

scheduler:

The scheduler on which the time interval will be measured.

options:

Optional. You’ll usually omit it.