Swift NSCache Singleton

Question

I want to wrap NSCache in a Singleton in order to use dependency injection in my code. This has resulted, rather unfortunately, in passing the type through a function parameter, and I even need two mocks for success and failure since it is a singleton instance.

I think there might be a better way, but any comments appreciated!

ImageCache and protocol

protocol ImageCacheProtocol {
    static var shared: Self { get }
    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage>
}

final class ImageCache: ImageCacheProtocol {
    var cache: NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> = NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage>()

    public static let shared = ImageCache()
    private init() {}
    
    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> {
        return cache
    }
}

MockImageCache & MockImageCacheFailure

final class MockImageCache: ImageCacheProtocol {
    var cache: NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> = MockNSCache(shouldReturnImage: true)

    public static let shared = MockImageCache()
    private init() {}

    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> {
        return cache
    }
}


final class MockImageCacheFailure: ImageCacheProtocol {
    var cache: NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> = MockNSCache(shouldReturnImage: false)

    public static let shared = MockImageCacheFailure()
    private init() {}

    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> {
        return cache
    }
}

Instantiating my view model (snippet)

class ViewModel<U: ImageCacheProtocol> {

    private var cache: U.Type
    init<T: NetworkManagerProtocol>(networkManager: T, data: DisplayContent, imageCache: U.Type) {
        self.networkManager = AnyNetworkManager(manager: networkManager)
        
        cache = imageCache

Answer 1

Yes, this isn't the canonical way. My solution is to not use Self and to instead focus on shared.

That is:

protocol ImageCacheProtocol {
    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage>
}

final class ImageCache: ImageCacheProtocol {
    var cache: NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> = NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage>()
    static var shared = ImageCache()
    
    private init() {}
    
    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> {
        return cache
    }
}

Then the mocks can be altered:

final class MockImageCache: ImageCacheProtocol {
    var cache: NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> = MockNSCache(shouldReturnImage: true)
    public static var shared: ImageCacheProtocol! = MockImageCache()
    func getCache() -> NSCache<AnyObject, UIImage> {
        return cache
    }
}