iOS 7 Programming Cookbook

4.1. Populating a Table View with Data

Problem

You would like to populate your table view with data.

Solution

Conform to the UITableViewDataSource protocol in an object and assign that object to the dataSource property of a table view.

Discussion

Create an object that conforms to the UITableViewDataSource protocol and assign it to a table view instance. Then, by responding to the data source messages, provide information to your table view. For this example, let’s go ahead and declare the .m file of our view controller, which will later create a table view on its own view, in code:

#import "ViewController.h"

static NSString *TableViewCellIdentifier = @"MyCells";

@interface ViewController () <UITableViewDataSource>
@property (nonatomic, strong) UITableView *myTableView;
@end

The TableViewCellIdentifier contains our cell identifiers as a static string variable. Each cell, as you will learn soon, can have an identifier, which is great for reusing cells. For now, think about this as a unique identifier for all the cells in our table view, nothing more.

In the viewDidLoad method of our view controller, we create the table view and assign our view controller as its data source:

- (void)viewDidLoad{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    self.myTableView =
    [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds
                                 style:UITableViewStylePlain];

    [self.myTableView registerClass:[UITableViewCell class]
             forCellReuseIdentifier:TableViewCellIdentifier];

    self.myTableView.dataSource = self;

    /* Make sure our table view resizes correctly ...