UITableViewDataSource Method -cellForRowAtIndexPath - iphone

Question

If I have my data in an NSArray, and I can NSLog that data in my -cellForRowAtIndexPath method, would there be any reason why I wouldn't be able see the data in my UITableView using code like:
static NSString *simpleIdentifier = #"SimpleIdentifier";
UITableViewCell *simpleCell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:simpleIdentifier];
if (simpleCell == nil) {
simpleCell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:simpleIdentifier];
}
NSUInteger row;
row = [indexPath row];
simpleCell.textLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
simpleCell.selectionStyle = UITableViewCellSelectionStyleNone;
simpleCell.textLabel.text = [_categoriesArray objectAtIndex:row];
return simpleCell;
I'm wondering if I missed a "gotcha" or something. I have this data verbatim in one popover and it works fine. But then when I put it in another popover, it shows nothing. So I'm stumped! Any help would be great. Thanks.

Answer 1

How many rows and sections do you have defined for your table? If they are not defined correctly you won't have any data populating. I'm also assuming that your tableViewCell is not white, since you are setting the color of the text to white.

Answer 2

You're constructing your cell like this:
simpleCell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:simpleIdentifier];
By default this creates a cell with an opaque white background. Then you're setting your text color to white:
simpleCell.textLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
Try setting a different background color for your cell:
simpleCell.backgroundColor = [UIColor grayColor];
If you really need the table to be transparent you could set the color for both the cell and the tableView itself to [UIColor clearColor], but be aware that transparency really hurts your scrolling frame rate. You're better off using opaque views wherever possible.

Answer 3

Thank you everyone for trying to help me troubleshoot this problem. It was not a color issue. I finally got it to work, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe someone else can chime in as why it works now. So in my cellForRowAtIndexPath method and other datasource methods, I have code like
if (tableView == tableView1 || tableView == _categoriesTableView || tableView == tableView2) {
...
if (tableView == tableView1) {
//do stuff
}
else if (tableView == _categoriesTableView) {
// do real stuff
}
else {
// do stuff
}
When I first had it working, I had a popover from a button that would show tableView1, then you would select a row in that table, to present another popover like _categoriesTableView. So this code worked fine. However, when I would try to change the first popover to show the _categoriesTableView, leaving all other code the same, no data would show correctly. Then instead of replacing the tableView1 initializing data for the popover, I still initialized it, but just did not present it in the popover, and now everything works. Not sure why the uninitialized memory of tableView1 would cause the problem since when I followed the code with breakpoints, my "do real stuff" was run, just wouldn't do what it was supposed to (display the data in the UITableView).