Question

I have 5 NSMutableArrays in cell. I need to sort cells by one value.
Example I need to sort cell by time.

[MyArray1 sortUsingSelector:@selector(compare:)];

but how I will be with other 4 NSMutableArray in cell?

Answer 1

It’s not a good idea to store data for your cells in 5 arrays, don’t separate them; create a data container class, store all values for each cell inside one data container object and then you can sort your array with data containers by one of the values.

e.g.:

DataContainer.h:

@interface DataContainer : NSObject
{
    NSDate *date1;
    NSDate *date2;
    NSString *upperTitle;
    NSString *mainTitle;
    NSString *subtitle;
}

@property (nonatomic, strong) NSDate *date1;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSDate *date2;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *upperTitle;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *mainTitle;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *subtitle;

@end

DataContainer.m:

@implementation DataContainer
@synthesize date1, date2, upperTitle, mainTitle, subtitle;
@end

Then you can create your DataContainer‘s (one for each cell) and store them in one NSMutableArray.

e.g.:

DataContainer *container = [[DataContainer alloc] init];
[container setDate1:[NSDate date]];
[container setMainTitle:@"blahblah"];
///...
[cellArr addObject:container];

To sort this array, use:

cellArr = [cellArr sortedArrayUsingComparator:^(id cont1, id cont2) {
                return [[(DataContainer *) cont1 date1] compare:[(DataContainer *) cont2 date1]];
            }];

and then use them in your cellForRowAtIndexPath:

DataContainer *container = [cellArr objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
//container.date1, container.date2, container.upperTitle, container.mainTitle and container.subtitle are the values that you need for your cell.

Notice that this code is suitable if you’re using ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) for your project; if you’re not using ARC, then you need to change strong to retain in property definitions and add release‘s to needed places to avoid memory leaks.