Xcode: Reset App and all variables and classes - swift

Question

I have an App that creates 21 buttons on the storyboard and then these buttons allow the user to choose players.The buttons are created programatically and have a class that sets their format.
//run 2 loops to dsip;ay the buttons (21 of them)
for j in 0...2 {
for i in 0...6 {
//use the CLASS KSPIckButton to format the buttons
let buttonOne:UIButton = KSPickButton(frame: CGRect(x: (j + 1) * 35 + (j * 80), y: (i + 5) * 35 + buttonSet, width: 110, height: 30))
//Add the button to the storyboard
self.view.addSubview(buttonOne)
buttonOne.addTarget(self,
action: #selector(playerButtons),
for: .touchUpInside)
//assign the tag to the button
buttonOne.tag = playerNo
//Give the buttons the players names
buttonOne.setTitle(allPlayers[playerNo], for: .normal)
THE PROBLEM:
The user could pick 10 names and then decide to reset.....
I TRIED:
I ran viewDidLoad() from an action Button, and it would load another 21 buttons on top of the 21 already there, which in theory works, but as the backgroundColor of my buttons is clear the old ones underneath show.
THEORY:
I am guessing that I should not be just loading layers and layers and layers of buttons anyway?
But I cannot find anywhere an option to programatically reset the app as if just loaded, or clear the existing buttons so I can create some more.
QUESTION:
Can someone point me in the right direction for an App reset or similar process?
many thanks in advance
Kev

Answer 1

Create a reset method and first of all remove all potential pick buttons from the view.
func reset() {
let ksPickButtons = view.subviews.filter{$0 is KSPickButton}
ksPickButtons.forEach{$0.removeFromSuperview()}
// code to create the buttons
}
Or shorter
func reset() {
view.subviews.filter{$0 is KSPickButton}
.forEach{$0.removeFromSuperview()}
// code to create the buttons
}
Then move the other code from viewDidLoad into reset and call the method from viewDidLoad as well as from any other place.
Side note:
You must not call yourself any delegate method containing will, did and should. Those methods are exclusively called by the framework.

Answer 2

You should either only add the buttons on the storyboard and create IBOutlets to reach them in code, or don't add any buttons in the storyboard and create and add them only with code. I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish so unfortunately I can't give you a whole lot of advice regarding this, aside from that it's (generally) a good idea to either stick to only storyboards or only programatically creating UI (and myself I prefer the latter).
Either way, to directly answer your question, the only way to really 'reset' a viewcontroller is by creating a new viewcontroller and replacing the old one with the new one (so there is not really any type of reset on an existing viewcontroller). If you don't want to create a new viewcontroller then the only thing you can do is manually clean everything up yourself, I'll give you an example of how to clean up your buttons:
func removeAllPickButtons() {
let buttons = view.subviews.compactMap({ $0 as? KSPickButton })
buttons.forEach({ $0.removeFromSuperview() })
}
This method filters all the views that are directly in your viewcontroller (so only 1 layer deep) to only KSPickButtons (compactMap), and then loops through all of them to remove them from their superview (forEach)