Question

This is essentially the layout I want:

The UITableView at the bottom should accomodate comments to a specific post, adding a row for each comment.

The UITableView at the bottom is wired to commentTable; all other elements are wired accordingly as well.

When I build and run, no errors, but I only see one empty table cell below the post.

I know there’s something missing in loading/passing data to my table, but I wonder if someone can give me a direction on how to make this work.

DetailViewController.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface DetailViewController : UIViewController {
    IBOutlet UIImageView  *postThumbView;
    IBOutlet UILabel      *postTextLabel;
    IBOutlet UIImageView  *postAuthorPictureView;
    IBOutlet UILabel      *postAuthorNameLabel;
    IBOutlet UILabel      *postTimestampLabel;
    IBOutlet UIScrollView *scroller;
    IBOutlet UITableView  *commentTable;
}

@property (strong, nonatomic) id detailItem;
@end

DetailViewController.m

#import "DetailViewController.h"

@interface DetailViewController ()

- (void)configureView;

@end

@implementation DetailViewController;

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    [self configureView];
}

- (void)configureView
{
    if (self.detailItem) {
        NSDictionary *post           = self.detailItem;
        NSString     *postText       = [post objectForKey:@"post_text"];
        ...

        postTextLabel.text  = postText;
        ...
    }
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    NSDictionary *post           = self.detailItem;
    NSDictionary *commentThread  = [post objectForKey:@"comment"];

    return commentThread.count;
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"commentCell";

    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    if (cell == nil) {
        cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    }

    NSDictionary *post           = self.detailItem;
    NSDictionary *commentThread  = [post objectForKey:@"comment"];

    NSString     *commentText       = [commentThread objectForKey:@"comment_text"];
    NSString     *commentAuthorName = [commentThread objectForKey:@"comment_author_name"];

    cell.textLabel.text = commentText;
    cell.detailTextLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"by %@", commentAuthorName];

    return cell;
}

@end

Answer 1

You need to declare your view controller as the delegate and data source for the table view

change this line in your .h file

@interface DetailViewController : UIViewController <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource>

Then in your viewDidLoad

commentTable.dataSource = self;
commentTableView.delegate = self;
[commentTableView reloadData];
[self configureView];

You can also look in the story board, and connect the outlets n the same way you connected commentTable to your UITableView, but by dragging in the opposite direction and selecting data source and delegate