Swift: Pass UITableViewCell label to new ViewController

Question

I have a UITableView that populates Cells with data based on a JSON call. like so:

var items = [\"Loading...\"]
var indexValue = 0

// Here is SwiftyJSON co         


        

Answer 1

You asked:

How do I get the label of the cell when it is selected and then also pass that to another ViewController?

I might suggest rephrasing the question as follows: "How do I retrieve the data associated with the selected cell and pass it along to another view controller?"

That might sound like the same thing, but there's an important conceptual distinction here. You really don't want to retrieve the value from the cell label. Our apps employ a MVC paradigm, so when you want to pass data information from one scene to another, you want to go back to the model (the items array), not the view (the text property of the UILabel).

This is a trivial example, so this distinction is a bit academic, but as apps get more complicated, this pattern of going back to the model becomes increasingly important. The string representation from the cell is generally is a poor substitute for the actual model objects. And, as you'll see below, it's just as easy (if not easier) to retrieve the data from the model, so you should just do that.

As an aside, you don't really need a didSelectRowAtIndexPath method at all in this case. All you need is a segue from the table view cell to the destination scene, give that segue a unique identifier (Details in my example), and then implement prepare(for:sender:):

override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
    if let destination = segue.destination as? DetailsViewController {
        let selectedRow = tableView.indexPathForSelectedRow!.row
        destination.selectedValue = items[selectedRow]
    }
}

Alternatively, if your segue is between the cell and destination scene, you can also use the sender of the prepare(for:sender:):

override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
    if let destination = segue.destination as? DetailsViewController {
        let cell = sender as! UITableViewCell
        let selectedRow = tableView.indexPath(for: cell)!.row
        destination.selectedValue = items[selectedRow]
    }
}

But the idea is the same. Identify what row was selected, and retrieve the information from the model, the items array.

The above is Swift 3. For Swift 2.3, please see the previous version of this answer.