Question

So I’ve defined an IBAction in my header, implemented it in my main and I can see it in IB – however, when I drag over the UISearchBar, it doesn’t connect.

Here’s my header code:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@class DetailViewController;

@interface CustomerListViewController : UITableViewController
{
}

-(IBAction)filterTableData:(UISearchBar *)filterBar;

@property (strong, nonatomic) DetailViewController *detailViewController;
@property (retain) IBOutlet UISearchBar *searchBar;
@property (strong, nonatomic)NSArray *custs, *workingSet;


@end

Here’s my implementing method:

-(IBAction)filterTableData:(UISearchBar *)filterBar {

    //filter our search results
    NSString *filter;
    if (filterBar.text)
        filter = [filterBar.text stringByAppendingString:@"*"];
    else
        filter = @"*";

    NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF LIKE[cd] %@", filter];
    self.workingSet = [self.custs filteredArrayUsingPredicate: predicate];

    [self.tableView reloadData];
}

And here’s an image of IB actually seeing the method and allowing it to be dragged, and me unsuccessfully attempting to drag it to the search bar:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/b7DwC.png

Answer 1

A UISearchBar is not a subclass of a UIControl, meaning that you can’t add methods to be called when an event occurs.

What you’ll want to do is setup your view controller as a UISearchBarDelegate and use the following method instead of your filterTableData: method.

- (void)searchBar:(UISearchBar *)searchBar textDidChange:(NSString *)searchText

Then in IB you’ll want to click and drag from the search bar to the files owner and choose the delegate property.