Question

so first I’ll give some background information so you can understand my problem completely. I’ve spent hours looking for a solution but still can’t seem to get it right. So I’m trying to create an app that loads a tableView as a subview on a uiviewcontroller (SubviewPracticeMasterViewController). The table view is subclassed on another uiviewcontroller(SubviewPracticeViewController), and is loaded as a uiview on SubviewPracticeMasterViewController.

I also have an NSObject called LeadsInformation. LeadsInformation.h looks like this

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface LeadsInformation : NSObject

@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *leadName;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *lastName;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *firstName;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *areaCode;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *phoneNumber;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *status;
@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *notes;


-(id)initWithName: (NSString *)leadName lastName: (NSString *)lastName firstName:      (NSString *)firstName
     areaCode: (NSString *)areaCode phoneNumber: (NSString *)phoneNumber status: (NSString *)status 
        notes: (NSString *)notes;

@end

So on SubviewPracticeViewController.m, I programmatically add 4 LeadsInformation objects into an array called ‘dataArray’ and load specific string values into a custom cell in my cellForRowAtIndexPath method.

Now this is where my problem is occurring. I am also loading a custom header from a xib file. The header has two buttons on it: I want the first button to sort the cells alphabetically based on the first column, and I want the second button to sort the cells alphabetically based on the second column of the cell.

The table view is showing exactly as I want it to, with the custom table header as well, and the buttons are being clicked. However, the cells are not getting sorted. I have put the code for sorting by the first column in the IBAction method associated with its button on the header. Here is the code:

- (IBAction)sortLeadName:(id)sender {
    NSSortDescriptor *leadNameDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:    @"leadName" ascending:YES selector:@selector(localizedStandardCompare:)];
    NSArray *sortDescriptor = [NSArray arrayWithObject:leadNameDescriptor];
    NSArray *sortedArray = [self.dataArray sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:sortDescriptor];

    self.dataArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:sortedArray];
    [[self tableView] reloadData];

}

And here is the code for cellForRowAtIndexPath just in case:

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

    UITableViewCell *cell = [_tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"Identifier"];
    if (cell == nil) {

        NSArray *topLevelObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"CustomCell" owner:self options:nil];
        cell = [topLevelObjects objectAtIndex:0];
    }

    LeadsInformation *leadAtIndex = [self.dataArray objectAtIndex: indexPath.row];

    UILabel *label;
    label = (UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:1];
    label.text = leadAtIndex.leadName;

    label = (UILabel *)[cell viewWithTag:2];
    label.text = leadAtIndex.status;

    return cell;
}

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

So it turns out I was doing some unnecessary work that was throwing me off. I didn’t need to sort a copy of my array and then reload my dataArray as the new sorted copy. I just needed to directly sort the array with the SortDescriptor, like so:

-(IBAction)sortLeadName:(id)sender {
    NSSortDescriptor *sortDescript = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"status"  ascending: YES selector:@selector(localizedStandardCompare:)];

    [self.dataArray sortUsingDescriptors: [NSArray arrayWithObject: sortDescript]];
    [self.tableView reloadData];
}