Использование JSONEncoder для кодирования переменной с типом Codable as

Используйте общий тип с ограничением Encodable

func saveObject<T : Encodable>(_ object: T, at location: String) {
    //Some code

    let data = try JSONEncoder().encode(object)

    //Some more code
}

Я бы использовал другой подход к расширению протокола Encodable со всеми методами экземпляра, которые могут вам понадобиться. Расширяя это, вы можете добавить параметр к своим методам, чтобы передать пользовательский кодировщик и предоставить кодировщик по умолчанию для всех из них:

extension DataProtocol {
    var string: String? { String(bytes: self, encoding: .utf8) }
}

extension Encodable {
    func data(using encoder: JSONEncoder = JSONEncoder()) throws -> Data { try encoder.encode(self) }
    func string(using encoder: JSONEncoder = JSONEncoder()) throws -> String { try data(using: encoder).string ?? "" }
}

использование

let message = ["key":["a","b","c"]]

let jsonData = try! message.data() // 21 bytes [123, 34, 107, 101, 121, 34, 58, 91, 34, 97, 34, 44, 34, 98, 34, 44, 34, 99, 34, 93, 125]
let jsonString = try! message.string()  // "{"key":["a","b","c"]}"

Пример передачи даты с кодировщиком по умолчанию. Обратите внимание, что по умолчанию используется dateEncodingStrategy (Double, представляющий timeIntervalSinceReferenceDate):

let message = ["createdAt": Date()]

let jsonData = try! message.data() // 33 bytes -> [123, 34, 99, 114, 101, 97, 116, 101, 97, 100, 65, 116, 34, 58, 53, 55, 49, 54, 49, 55, 56, 52, 49, 46, 52, 53, 48, 55, 52, 52, 48, 51, 125]
let jsonString = try! message.string()  // {"createdAt":571617841.45074403}"

Теперь вы можете передать собственный кодировщик в свой метод, чтобы отформатировать дату в удобочитаемом формате:

let message = ["createdAt": Date()]
let encoder = JSONEncoder()
encoder.dateEncodingStrategy = .iso8601
let jsonString = try! message.string(using: encoder)  // "{"createdAt":"2019-02-11T22:48:19Z"}"

Теперь используется настраиваемая структура сообщений

struct Message: Codable {
    let id: Int
    let createdAt: Date
    let sender, title, body: String
}

extension Encodable {
    func sendDataToServer(using encoder: JSONEncoder = JSONEncoder()) throws {
        print(self, terminator: "\n\n")
        // Don't handle the error here. Propagate the error.
        let data = try self.data(using: encoder)
        print(data.string!)
        // following the code to upload the data to the server
        print("Message was successfully sent")
    }
}

let message = Message(id: 1, createdAt: Date(), sender: "[email protected]", title: "Lorem Ipsum", body: """
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
""")

let iso8601 = JSONEncoder()
iso8601.dateEncodingStrategy = .iso8601
iso8601.outputFormatting = .prettyPrinted
do {
    try message.sendDataToServer(using: iso8601)
} catch {
    // handle all errors
    print(error)
}

Это напечатает

Message(id: 1, createdAt: 2019-02-11 23:57:31 +0000, sender: "[email protected]", title: "Lorem Ipsum", body: "Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry\'s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.")

{
  "body" : "Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.",
  "id" : 1,
  "sender" : "[email protected]",
  "title" : "Lorem Ipsum",
  "createdAt" : "2019-02-11T23:57:31Z"
}
now just add the code to send the json data to the server

Вам нужно использовать универсальную функцию с универсальным типом Encodable

Ты не можешь

func toData(object: Encodable) throws -> Data {
  let encoder = JSONEncoder()
  return try encoder.encode(object) // Cannot invoke 'encode' with an argument list of type '(Encodable)'
}

Вы можете

func toData<T: Encodable>(object: T) throws -> Data {
  let encoder = JSONEncoder()
  return try encoder.encode(object)
}