Question

I can pop a view controller from a UINavigationController‘s stack by calling [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES]; either from the parent view controller that instantiated it, or from the child view controller itself. Which way is preferable?

Answer 1

I suppose the answer is “whatever makes the most sense”; as you said, you can call popViewControllerAnimated: from the parent, child, or even some other class that holds a reference to the navigation controller.

For most apps, the child view will contain a “back” or “done” button or some other action that then leads to it being popped. Generally, I would say this is the preferable behaviour: the child view controller pops itself.

Otherwise, the child would have to call out to the parent (via a delegate or something) to say “pop!” which would then call popViewControllerAnimated:. This feels a little too convoluted for such a simple action.