Question

I’m trying to insert some UILabels into the first row of a UITableView, but I’m getting unexpected results. For sake of brevity, here’s a summary:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
NSString* identifier = @"cell";
UITableViewCell* cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:identifier];

if (cell == nil)
    cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc[ .....

cell.textLabel.text = @"";

if (indexPath.row == 0) {
    cell.backgroundColor = ....
    UILabel* x = .....
    [x setTag:1];
    [cell insertSubview:x];
}
else {
    cell.textLabel.text = ....
    for (UIView* view in cell.subviews) {
        if (view.tag == 1)
            [view removeFromSuperview];
    }
}

return cell

}

That’s the gist anyway. The problem is that while the background color is being set correctly, anytime I scroll the table view, the custom UILabel I insert disappears. Maybe this stems from a misunderstanding of dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier but regardless, I would think that the label would be reinserted.

Answer 1

The best way to do that is to use different cell identifiers, and do the full initializing of the cell when it’s created, instead of creating, adding and removing a lot of views each time a cell is requested.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
  static NSString* normalCellIdentifier = @"Normal Cell";
  static NSString* specialCellIdentifier = @"Special Cell";

  if (indexPath.row == 0) {
    UITableViewCell* cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:specialCellIdentifier];

    if (cell == nil){
      cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc[ .....
      cell.backgroundColor = ....
      UILabel* x = .....
      [cell insertSubview:x];
    }

    return cell
  } else {
    UITableViewCell* cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:normalCellIdentifier];

    if (cell == nil)
      cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc[ .....
    cell.textLabel.text = ....
    return cell;
  }
}