Swift 2 - UITableView with Multi sections - swift

Question

I created a table with three sections, each section should handle an Animal array
var firstAnimals = Animal
var secondAnimals = Animal and so on
I am having trouble in the cellForRowAtIndexPath function, I want it to insert the items of the arrays according to the right section. I tried this, but it doesn't work with the array. Please help!
override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("cell", forIndexPath: indexPath) as! myCell
if indexPath.section == 0 {
cell.title.text = firstAnimals[indexPath.row]
} else if indexPath.section == 1 {
cell.title.text = secondAnimals[indexPath.row]
} else {
cell.title.text = thirdAnimals[indexPath.row]
}
return cell
}

Answer 1

The recommended way is to use a nested array
let animals = [[firstAnimal1, firstAnimal2, firstAnimal3],
[secondAnimal1, secondAnimal2, secondAnimal3],
[thirdAnimal1, thirdAnimal2, thirdAnimal3]]
Then cellForRowAtIndexPath could look like
override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("cell", forIndexPath: indexPath) as! myCell
let animalSection = animals[indexPath.section]
let animal = animalSection[indexPath.row]
cell.title.text = animal.name
return cell
}
Alternatively use an array with the section names and a dictionary with an animal array for each section name respectively. The section name array can also be used as the section header names.