Question

What I have:

To create this line, I basically have an UIView and I do the following:

void setLayerToLineFromAToB(CALayer *layer, CGPoint a, CGPoint b, CGFloat lineWidth)
{
    CGPoint center = { 0.5 * (a.x + b.x), 0.5 * (a.y + b.y) };
    CGFloat length = sqrt((a.x - b.x) * (a.x - b.x) + (a.y - b.y) * (a.y - b.y));
    CGFloat angle = atan2(a.y - b.y, a.x - b.x);

    layer.position = center;
    layer.bounds = (CGRect) { {0, 0}, { length + lineWidth, lineWidth } };
    layer.transform = CATransform3DMakeRotation(angle, 0, 0, 1);
}

Note: This code was found here on stackoverflow, so if someone can give me the reference to it I would appreciate.

What I want:

Ok so the “only” thing I need is to create this pattern on the UIView. I know I am able to do this using Quartz2D (a simple way to do it can be found here). But I want to do it by manipulating the CALayer and not going to to the draw method. Why? Because of the transformation I am making on my UIView, I am not able to draw correctly using the draw method.

Edit 1:

Just to illustrate my problem:

Normally what you have is UIView and then you basically just draw something in it (in this case a simple line). The solution I found to get rid of the “gray” area, was to instead of drawing something, just transform the UIView itself. It work well, if you want a fully filled line, the problem comes when you want a dashed one.

Answer 1

Note: The code from Prince did really help me out, so I will give him +10 for the tips. But in the end, I add to come with my own code. I will also add some context to it, so it can be useful for future readers

---

The final code was like this:

-(void)updateLine{

      // Important, otherwise we will be adding multiple sub layers
      if ([[[self layer] sublayers] objectAtIndex:0])
        {
            self.layer.sublayers = nil;
        }

        CAShapeLayer *shapeLayer = [CAShapeLayer layer];
        [shapeLayer setBounds:self.bounds];
        [shapeLayer setPosition:self.center];
        [shapeLayer setFillColor:[[UIColor clearColor] CGColor]];
        [shapeLayer setStrokeColor:[[UIColor blackColor] CGColor]];
        [shapeLayer setLineWidth:3.0f];
        [shapeLayer setLineJoin:kCALineJoinRound];
        [shapeLayer setLineDashPattern:
        [NSArray arrayWithObjects:[NSNumber numberWithInt:10],
        [NSNumber numberWithInt:5],nil]];

        // Setup the path
        CGMutablePathRef path = CGPathCreateMutable();
        CGPathMoveToPoint(path, NULL, beginPoint.center.x, beginPoint.center.y);
        CGPathAddLineToPoint(path, NULL, endPoint.center.x, endPoint.center.y);

        [shapeLayer setPath:path];
        CGPathRelease(path);

        [[self layer] addSublayer:shapeLayer];
}

In my case, the beginPoint and endPoint are movable by the user, by using KVO. So when one of them moves:

-(void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context
{
    if ([keyPath isEqual:@"position"])
    {
        [self updateLine];
    }
}

I did play a lot with Prince’s code. I tried on the draw: method, which add a thin line between the dashed line (a bit weird…) and I also tried on initWithFrame:. By itself his code, without any modifications, would give me this kind of errors on the console:

<Error>: CGContextSaveGState: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextSetLineWidth: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextSetLineJoin: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextSetLineCap: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextSetMiterLimit: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextSetFlatness: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextAddPath: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextDrawPath: invalid context 0x0
<Error>: CGContextRestoreGState: invalid context 0x0