How to hide a section in UITableView?

Question

There are some section in the table that does not contain any data and would like to hide that section.

How to do this?

Answer 1

Actually, you can "hide" a section. If you want to use a similar behaviour to the built-in contacts app, where sections are hidden but still listed in the index on the right you can do the following:

Implement the UITableViewDataSource protocol:

• Return all section names (even hidden ones) in - the sectionIndexTitlesForTableView method.

• For each empty section, return nil from the titleForHeaderInSection method.

• For each empty section return 0 for the numberOfRowsInSection method.

I find this works better than deleting sections, because the user has consistent index navigation.

Answer 2

You can also return the number of records that do contain data from the numberofSectionsInTableView: method and use a switch(indexPath.section) where you let the empty records 'fall through' to the next switch, like:

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {

    switch (indexPath.section) {
        case 0:
            return <header cell>;
            break;

        case 1:
            if(firstRecordHasData){
                return <second cell>;
                break;
            }

        case 2:
            if(secondRecordHasData){
                return <second cell>;
                break;
            }

        case 3:
            return <some other cell>;
            break;

        default:
            return <a regular cell>;
            break;
    }   
}

I was struggling with this for a while because I had to leave out sections in the middle of a grouped table. Tried with setting cell-, header- and footer heights to 0.0 but that didn't work. Couldn't just delete certain sections because of the called methods depending on the selected row. This was going to be a huge if..else if...else if with multiple callings of subroutines. Glad I thought of the good old switch method, maybe it helps you as well :-)

Answer 3

For hiding a section, even in the middle of the table view you would need all of the following

#define DEBUG_SECTION 1

#if ! DEBUG_BUILD
- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if (section == DEBUG_SECTION)
        return CGFLOAT_MIN;
    return [super tableView:tableView heightForHeaderInSection:section];
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if (section == DEBUG_SECTION)
        return CGFLOAT_MIN;
    return [super tableView:tableView heightForFooterInSection:section];
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if (section == DEBUG_SECTION)
        return nil;
    return [super tableView:tableView titleForHeaderInSection:section];
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if (section == DEBUG_SECTION)
        return nil;
    return [super tableView:tableView titleForFooterInSection:section];
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if (section == DEBUG_SECTION)
        return 0;
    return [super tableView:tableView numberOfRowsInSection:section];
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#endif // #if ! DEBUG_BUILD

if you left out titleFor/headerFor... you will get some empty rows
if you left out heightFor... the title/footer header text will still appear

Answer 4

If you return 0 for the height of the section, Apple API will ignore it. So just return a small value greater than 0.

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
  if (section == 0) {
    return 1;
  }

  return 44;
}

Also implement view for header and return nil for the section you don't want to show.

- (UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
  if (section == 0 && !self.personaCells.count) {
    return nil;
  }

  UIView *headerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, tableView.frame.size.width, 44)];
  UILabel *headerLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(15, 20, headerView.frame.size.width, 20)];
  NSString *headerTitle = @"SAMPLE TITLE";
  headerLabel.text = headerTitle;    
  [headerView addSubview:headerLabel];
  return headerView;
}

Answer 5

For the case of static table, that is, the table sections and cells are configured in Storyboard. The following are my strategies to hide a specified section depending conditions.

Step one: implement two func defined in UITableViewDelegate - heightForRowAt - heightForHeaderInSection

For example, here are swift codes:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, heightForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> CGFloat 
{
   // if indexPath contains the specified section AND
   //    the condition for hiding this section is `true`
   //       return CGFloat(0)
   // else 
   //    return super.tableView(tableView, heightForRowAt: indexPath)
}

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, heightForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> CGFloat 
{
   // similar logic to set header height
}

Step two: define a func to set cells hidden for specific section and call it from viewWillAppear:

private func setSectionVisible()
{
   /*
   if condition for visible is true
      let index = IndexPath(row:..., section:...)
      let cell = self.tableView.cellForRow(at: index)
      cell.isHiden = true
   */
}

override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated)
    self.setSectionVisible()
}

In case you need to reload tableview, you may need to call setSectionVisible() again.

I think this strategy may work for dynamic data from DataSource. In this way, you can control when to make specific section visible or hidden.

Answer 6

Try like this:-

- (CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    CGFloat headerHeight=10.f;
    if (section==0)
    {
        headerHeight=0.01f;
    }
    else
    {
        headerHeight=50.0f;
    }
    return headerHeight;
}