Question

I have created a dynamic table, but I’m facing an issue when I try to access the content of a text field in the first cell. The textfield I get is always empty, even though I enter some text in it before calling the action.

Here is my code. Could you help me to find what’s wrong in it ?

CustomNameCell.h

@interface CustomNameCell : UITableViewCell
    @property (retain, nonatomic) IBOutlet UITextField *nameTextField;
@end

CustomViewController.h

@interface CustomViewController : UITableViewController
    @property (retain, nonatomic) IBOutlet UITableView *tableview;
    - (IBAction)search:(id)sender;
@end

CustomViewController.m :

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    if (indexPath.row == 1) {
        static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"nameCell";
        CustomNameCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
        if (cell==nil) {
            cell = [[CustomNameCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
        }
        return cell;
    }
    ...

and the action when clicking a button, where I try to get the content of the textfield :

- (IBAction)search:(id)sender {

static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"nameCell";
CustomNameCell *nameCell = [_tableview dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

here nameCell.nameTextField.text is always equal to @""

Why is my text field always empty ?

Thank you for your help 😉

Answer 1

You shouldn’t call [_tableview dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];within your – (IBAction)search:(id)sender as it is a mechanism to reuse a cell during the creation of your tableView. Instead of creating new cell when you are scrolling your tableview you are reusing some cells you have previously created.

Bottom line: use instead the cellForRowAtIndexPath to access a cell at a specific row in your section and if you want the first cell of the first section it would be:

CustomNameCell * cell = (CustomNameCell *)[tableview cellForRowAtIndexPath:[NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:0 inSection:0]];