How to access values entered in a UITableViewCell? - iphone

Question

I have a prototype table in my app witch I populate with a customTableViewCell class with a UITextField inside.
In my navigation bar I got a save button.
The question is, how to access this dynamic created cell's to get the UITextField content?
This is my code, you can see that I tried to use NSMutableArray
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
static NSString *CellIdentifier = #"customTableCell";
customTableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
[self.pfCells addObject:cell];
if(cell == nil)
{
cell = [[customTableViewCell alloc]
initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault
reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
}
// Configuration
cell.lblName.text = [self.pfFields objectAtIndex: [indexPath row]];
cell.txtType = [self.pfTypes objectAtIndex: [indexPath row]];
if ([[self.pfTypes objectAtIndex:[indexPath row]] isEqualToString: #"n"]) {
[cell.txtField setKeyboardType:UIKeyboardTypeNumberPad];
} else if ([[self.pfTypes objectAtIndex:[indexPath row]] isEqualToString: #"m"]) {
[cell.txtField setKeyboardType:UIKeyboardTypeEmailAddress];
}
return cell;
}

Answer 1

Here's another way to save content from a UITextField contained in a UITableViewCell:
Inside tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: set the delegate and a tag for txtField
Implement textFieldDidEndEditing: check for a UITextField tag value an save data in a private variable
Reload UITableView
The biggest advantage of this implementation if the fact that you doesn't need to iterate over whole tableview everytime you change a textfield value.

Answer 2

Quick answer:
#pragma mark - UITextFieldDelegate
- (void)textFieldDidEndEditing:(UITextField *)textField
{
// grab the row we are working on
NSIndexPath *indexPath = [self.tableView indexPathForSelectedRow];
// remove the old key/value pair if it exists and add the new one
[self.modelDictionary removeObjectForKey:indexPath];
[self.modelDictionary setObject:textField.text forKey:indexPath];
}
Be sure to add cell.txtField.delegate = self when configuring your cell. Then in your save button, you'd iterate through the dictionary and save the values -- or just save the dictionary itself.
Also, if you are targeting iOS6 or later, use dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:forIndexPath: as this method guarantees a cell is returned and resized properly, so you don't have to check for nil and manually init your cell.
Longer answer:
You generally never want to store your model in your view as you are doing. Aside from it breaking the MVC design patterns, it also causes issues with UITableViews. Specifically, a UITableViewCell will be recycled when it scrolls off the screen. So any values you have in those fields are lost. While you can get away with doing this if you only have visible rows that never scroll off the screen, I would encourage you to avoid this approach altogether.
Instead, you should store the values entered into the textboxes in your model object. The easiest way to do this is to use UITextFieldDelegate's textFieldDidEndEditing: to grab the values after the user enters them, then add these values to your model. You model could be something as simple as an NSDictionary using the indexPath as the key.