unable to find view with tag - swift

Question

In my viewWillAppear() I create a label and give it a tag. When another condition is met, I try to remove the label, but for some reason, that is not working and the label is still in the view. I must be doing something wrong...
override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
super.viewWillAppear(animated)
var label: UILabel?
// Add label if there are no recipes
if (recipeBook.recipesArr.count == 0) {
label = self.view.viewWithTag(123) as? UILabel
//label?.tag = 123 // arbitrary num
label = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.height/3, width: self.view.frame.width, height: 100))
label?.text = "Add A Recipe"
label?.textColor = UIColor(red:0.93, green:0.92, blue:0.92, alpha:1.0)
label?.font = label?.font.withSize(36)
label?.textAlignment = .center
self.view.addSubview(label!)
}
else {
// remove it
if let foundLabel = self.view.viewWithTag(123) {
foundLabel.removeFromSuperview()
} else {
print("Couldn't find label with tag in view")
}
}
}
I didn't realize in this line label = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.height/3, width: self.view.frame.width, height: 100)) I was creating a new label which has a default tag of 0. Changed it to label?.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.height/3, width: self.view.frame.width, height: 100) so that I'm not creating a new label and everything is working fine. Silly mistake.

Answer 1

Your code is not doing what you think it is. If your recipesArr is empty (or more accurately the count is zero) you are trying to find a label/view with the tag 123. That is then ignored and you create a new label but don't give it a tag.
What you need to do is assign the label you create the tag 123 after you create it like this:
label?.tag = 123
Then you will have created the label and set it's tag so it can then subsequently be found.

Answer 2

you are recreating the label after the line label = UILabel(frame: CGRect
you can create the label programmatically like so without optionals:
lazy var recipeLabel: UILabel = {
let label = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: self.view.frame.height/3, width: self.view.frame.width, height: 100))
label.tag = 123
label.text = "Add A Recipe"
label.font = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 17.0)
label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
return label
}()
then add it to your subview with iOS 9+ constraints if needed:
self.view.addSubview(recipeLabel)
then you can access the view anywhere by simply referencing the view recipeLabel or by the .tag property if you desire.