Thank you @endecotp , sorry please could you explain why does creating the instance of API not work as a global, whereas it does work in the tableview controller? I tested the latter and it did work, thank you :-)

Thank you @endecotp :-)

Apologies @darkpaw I forgot to update the struct for the test project but I still get the error. I will repost the question to avoid confusion to others.

Are you saying you think there may be an error in the json file? I don't understand.

Thank you very much @Claude31. If I put "print(output)" before the "return output" line I am getting this in the debug area (1 each on separate lines): [] [] [] I don't know why there are only 3 brackets or why they are empty, the webservice has about 1000 dictionaries

Thank you Claude :-)

Thank you Quinn, the users will be happy to wait until the data is retrieved - a spinning wheel would be fine.

I tried the above but I'm getting an error "type "_" cannot be used as a boolean" for the "let url" line

var quotes: [(quote: String, order: Int)]; let url = URL(string:"https://www.TEST.com/test_connection.php"){ URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: url) { (data, response, error) in if let data = data{ if let json = try? JSONDecoder().decode([[String:String]].self, from: data){ json.forEach { row in quotes.append((row["quote"]!, Int(row["order"]!)!)) }}}}}

OK sorry I don't think I understand, isn't "return" used for functions but "quotes" is a variable?

Thank you @darkpaw ! I'll go with the simple solution! :-)