Question

I’m trying to use a custom UITableViewCell, and I’ve placed it in the same nib file as the UITableView controller. For this, the files are: NTItems.h, NTItems.m and NTItems.xib.

I have defined the cell in the header file:

IBOutlet UITableViewCell *cellview;

and I’ve correctly applied the property: nonatomic, retain so it’s there:

@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableViewCell *cellview;

In the m file – I’ve synthesized the variable device and am using this to get the custom cell:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

   static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"cellview";

   UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

   if (cell == nil) {
    cell = self.cellview;
   }

   Product *aProduct = [appDelegate.products objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];

   name.text  = aProduct.name;
   upc.text   = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"UPC%@",aProduct.upc];
   price.text = aProduct.pid;
   return cell;
 }

However, when I load the table, I get this horrible mess:

alt text http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1545603/tablecellissue.png

There should be more than 1 cell showing data as well. It appears that only the last data is showing up right now.

Answer 1

You can’t reuse a single cell from an outlet like this. Think about it: you’re returning the same cell for every call to tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:. It’s your job to ask the tableView to dequeue a cell if possible, and create a new one each time it isn’t.

Instead, store your custom cell in a separate nib and read that nib within your if (cell == nil) { } code when dequeue fails.

The nib file that contains the custom cell should have its File’s Owner NSObject and it should contain only the cell’s nib (no other objects).

I use this function to load the nib:

- (id)loadObjectFromNibNamed: (NSString *)inName;
{
    id objectsInNib = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed: inName
                                                     owner: self
                                                   options: nil];
     NSAssert1( objectsInNib != nil, @"loadNibNamed %@ returned nil", inName );
     NSAssert2( [objectsInNib count] == 1, @"lodNibNamed %@ returned %d items", inName, [objectsInNib count] );
     return [objectsInNib objectAtIndex: 0];
    }

Then in my tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: I have:

if ( cell == nil ) {
    cell = [self loadObjectFromNibNamed: nibName];
}

(I use the same nib name as my cell reuse identifier.)