adding a UITableView programmatically to a UIViewController - iphone

Question

I'm loading a UIViewController into one of my Nav controller's hierarchies, which will contain some text and some images. At the bottom, I will want to create a expandable and collapsable tableview.
First off, is this idea possible? If it is, how do I add it and where do I place the data source and delegate methods?
Can I just make a separate subclass of the TableViewController and then add it to my ViewController as a subview?

Answer 1

Yes, you can create a UITableView whose delegate, datasource, and parent view are not necessarily a UITableViewController. Since the UITableView is a UIView, you can add it as a subview of any other UIView. Any NSObject can be the delegate or datasource, as long as you implement the required protocol methods.
#interface MyViewController : UIViewController <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource>
In fact, in my experience, not many people even use UITableViewControllers. When was the last time you wanted your table view to take up the entire usable space? In general, I create a plain old UIViewController and add a UITableView as a subview of its view, in addition to other subviews.

Answer 2

/************************************************/
/************* MyCustomController.m *************/
/************************************************/
#interface MyCustomController () <UITableViewDataSource, UITableViewDelegate>
#property (nonatomic, strong) UITableView *tableView;
#end
#implementation MyCustomController
- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString*)nibName bundle:(NSString*)bundleName
{
self = [super initWitNibName:nibName bundle:bundleName];
if (self)
{
self.tableView = [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds style:UITableViewStylePlain];
tableView.datasource = self;
tableView.delegate = self;
[self.view addSubview:self.tableView];
}
return self;
}
#pragma mark - UITableViewDataSource Methods
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
// return number of rows
}
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
// return cell
}
#pragma mark - UITableViewDelegate Methods
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
// handle table view selection
}
#end

Answer 3

It's pretty easy, in something like your viewDidLoad method:
UITableView *tableView = [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
[self.view addSubview:tableView];

Answer 4

Just remember that a UITableViewController is a subclass of UIViewController only with the tableview set as the controller's view.
So yes definitely possible and used quite frequently when you want to have a tableview but also other custom UI elements which prevent you from using the UITableViewController.
I'd normally choose to add it to my view controller's view in either its initialisation method or viewDidLoad method. This will vary based on whether you're creating your views from a NIB or entirely programatically.
In case of NIBs:
- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString*)nibName bundle:(NSBundle*)bundleName
{
if ((self = [super initWitNibName:nibName bundle:bundleName]))
{
self.theTableView = [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero style:UITableViewWhateverStyleYouWantHere];
theTableView.dataSource = self, theTableView.delegate = self;
[self.view addSubview:theTableView];
[theTableView release];
}
}
And then you can set the frame of your tableview in your viewDidLoad method.
I'd personally prefer to do the whole thing in interface builder as you'd achieve the same result with way less code to maintain.

Answer 5

If you're like me and already had created a UITableViewController and then realizing that you did so much work on it that re-writing it would be a pain, you can just do the following to add the UITableViewController to the UIViewController as a subview.
UITableViewController* tableViewController = [[UITableViewController alloc] init];
[self.view addSubview:tableViewController.tableView];
All the other answers above works great. I figure I'd add to this for those that have a heavily invested implementation of a UITableViewController and feel like refactoring would be a pain.