Question

When creating a custom UITableView cell I manually define a delegate variable in the @interface of a UITableViewCell class (each cell must communicate with parent class so the connection betweet two classes is needed). Then when a cell is attached to a UITableView, I just set that delegate variable.

@interface MyCellClass : UITableViewCell {
   MyParentController *delegat;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) MyParentController *delegat;

Is there a better way of doing it?

Answer 1

That could be ok but be sure you don’t make retain cycles. (A retains B, B retains A, none of them get never released)

If you are just using only a functionality of MyParentController then, it is a good idea to make a protocol and set a delegate as an object that adopts (implements) that @protocol, It is not mandatory but it is good practice and better design this way.

You could create your protocol like:

//MyProtocol.h
@protocol MyProtocol <NSObject>

@required
- (void) requiredMethod:(NSString *)param;
@optional
- (void) optionalMethod:(NSString *)param;
@end

And Make your class:

#import "MyProtocol.h"

@interface MyCellClass : UITableViewCell {
   id<MyProtocol> delegate;
}
@property (nonatomic, assign) id<MyProtocol> delegate; //see I changed it to assign?

Also, when you have delegates you should avoid making them retain or you will have retain cycles and hence, memory leaks.