How to work with UITextFields inside of UITableViewCells? - iphone

Question

I have 10 UITableViewCells in my UITableView. Each cell has a UITextField. They load fine, but I need a way to set each cell's text to its associated string.
Is there a delegate of UITextField that I can use to do this, and how can I determine which textfield belongs to what NSString, etc?
Edit:
Here is a picture of my tableView. I want it to load text into each cell's textfield from the server then the user can edit it. Or if there is no data on the server, the textfield will be blank and the user can add data and it will sync back.
I have created an NSString for each cell, such as temperatureString, pulseString, etc.

Answer 1

Edit: In respect to the new info this is my new solution
So by the looks of it you are inserting UITextField into each cell, instead of setting the tag of each cell set the tag for each UITextField
First Define your tags
#define DESCRIPTIVE_TAG_VALUE_1 10
#define DESCRIPTIVE_TAG_VALUE_2 11
#define DESCRIPTIVE_TAG_VALUE_3 12
...
Use these in your UITextField Delegate to determine which UITextField belongs to which NSString that is if you are syncing with each update, if your not. Then obtain a reference to the UITableView and retrieve each of the text values of each subview of a cell that has a tag equal to one of your defines (again in a switch statement).
Once again in when working with iOS use tags they are your friends
OR
Also you said that you are holding a reference to each NSString, you could just hold a reference to each UITextField instead that way when you sync you just have to retieve from each of your UITextField references.
But the Apple's best practises say to exercise the use of unique tags when dealing with mutliple views. It's really up to you

Answer 2

UITextfield is a subclass of UIView which has a 'tag' property. You can assign the cell's indexPath.row to be it's text field's tag as identification.

Answer 3

Based on your comment in response to #Javy (which contains extra information you should consider adding to your original question), you could do something like the following:
UITableViewCell *cell = nil;
NSString *key = nil;
switch (indexPath.row)
{
case 0:
cell = self.temperatureCell;
key = #"temperature";
break;
case 1:
// Do other cases similarly ...
}
NSString *text = [self.childAppointmentDictionary objectForKey:key];
cell.textField.text = text;

Answer 4

You should be setting the text in tableView: cellForRowAtIndexPath:
It sounds like you have a specific order that you want your items to appear in which would be a good time to use an NSArray, rather than an NSDictionary.
You could, in init, or initwithNibName, create a retained array property:
self.myListArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"fever", #"cough", #"runny nose", nil];
Then, assuming that you only have 1 section, you would do cell.textField.text = [self.myListArray objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
Is there a reason that you're using an NSDictionary for this rather than an NSArray?

Answer 5

You must store a reference to each text field when they are created, so in the:
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if (cell == nil) {
cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
}
Method, you would add this line:
[myTextFieldArray addObject: cell.textField];
Assuming textField is the property for your custom tabel view cell.
You would also set the text within the text field just after the if (cell == nil) method.
The delegate methods simply allow you to know when text is being typed, etc.
EDIT:
Considering what you've added, I agree with Sid and CStreel. Create the tags for each value:
#define kTemperatureTag 0
#define kPulseTag 1
// etc.
As an alternative to CStreel, I would assign/retrieve info matching the indexPath row, and not worry about assigning tags, because they will be the same thing if you start your tags at zero.
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
// setup / retrieve cell
NSInteger index = [indexPath row];
switch(index)
{
case kTemperatureTag:
cell.textField.text = [self.childAppointmentDictionary objectForKey:#"temperature"];
break;
// case ...
}
// ..
}
And:
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
NSInteger index = [indexPath row];
switch(index){
case kTemperatureTag:
[self.childAppointmentDictionary addObject:cell.textField.text forKey:#"temperature"];