Iphone - when to calculate heightForRowAtIndexPath for a tableview when each cell height is dynamic?

Question

I have seen this question asked many times but astoundingly, I have not seen a consistent answer, so I will give it a try myself:

If you have a tableview containing

Answer 1

Here is what I do in very simple case, a cell containing a note held in a label. The note itself is constrained to a maximum length I am imposing, so I use a multi-line UILabel and I compute dynamically the correct eight for each cell as shown in the following example. You can deal with an UITextView pretty much the same.

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

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

    // Configure the cell...
    Note *note = (Note *) [fetchedResultsController objectAtIndexPath:indexPath];
    cell.textLabel.text = note.text;
    cell.textLabel.numberOfLines = 0; // no limits

    DateTimeHelper *dateTimeHelper = [DateTimeHelper sharedDateTimeHelper];
    cell.detailTextLabel.text = [dateTimeHelper mediumStringForDate:note.date];

    cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDetailDisclosureButton;


    return cell;
}


- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{

    //NSLog(@"heightForRowAtIndexPath: Section %d Row %d", indexPath.section, indexPath.row);
    UITableViewCell *cell = [self tableView: self.tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath: indexPath];
    NSString *note = cell.textLabel.text;
    UIFont *font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica" size:14.0];
    CGSize constraintSize = CGSizeMake(280.0f, MAXFLOAT);
    CGSize bounds = [note sizeWithFont:font constrainedToSize:constraintSize lineBreakMode:UILineBreakModeWordWrap];
    return (CGFloat) cell.bounds.size.height + bounds.height;

}