ios 5 UISearchDisplayController crash

Question

I am implementing a UITableView with UISearchDisplayController in xcode 4.2. UITableView & UISearchDisplayController are created in StoryBoard. I set the Cell Identifier (SampleCell) for UITableView and access it like

cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"SampleCell"];

UItableView is working fine. But once i try to search, the app crash with below error.

*** Assertion failure in -[UISearchResultsTableView _createPreparedCellForGlobalRow:withIndexPath:], /SourceCache/UIKit_Sim/UIKit-1912.3/UITableView.m:6072
2011-11-09 22:22:16.058 SampleApp[14362:fb03] *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'UITableView dataSource must return a cell from tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:'

I guess I need to set the cell identifier for self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView cell. But I don't know how. Thanks in advance for any help. =)

Answer 1

Use [self.tableView dequeue...], not [tableView dequeue...].

The cell you're trying to dequeue is linked to your primary view controller's tableView in the storyboard, NOT the searchDisplayController's newly created tableView (which has no cell identifiers linked to it). If you just message "tableView" then your dequeue message goes to the searchDisplayController's tableView since that's what was passed into the cellForRowAtIndexPath:... method.

-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    UITableViewCell *cell = [self.tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"CellId"];

    // do your thing

    return cell;
}

Answer 2

Hard bug to track indeed, it seems that every time you do a search a new tableview is created. Meaning that your cell registering has to be taken out of ViewDidLoad since this will only work for the first search. Instead use the following delegate method to do cell registering and customization:

    - (void)searchDisplayControllerWillBeginSearch:(UISearchDisplayController *)controller
{
    [self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView 
     registerNib:[UINib nibWithNibName:@"YOURCELLNIB" bundle:nil] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"YOURCELLID"];
    self.searchDisplayController.searchResultsTableView.separatorColor = [UIColor clearColor];
}

Answer 3

(The answer that recommends using self.tableview is dependent on another table view. This is the cleanest solution and can be used even if the search controller is used by itself.)

You need to register the cells on the UISearchDisplayController's UITableView. The best way to do that is to register the cells when that table view is loaded.

UISearchDisplayDelegate has a method that notifies you when the table view is loaded - just like viewDidLoad but for the search table view.

- (void)searchDisplayController:(UISearchDisplayController *)controller didLoadSearchResultsTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
{
    [tableView registerNib:[UINib nibWithNibName:@"MyCellNib" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"MyCellIdentifier"];
}

Answer 4

You can in

- (void)searchDisplayController:(UISearchDisplayController *)searchDisplayController didLoadSearchResultsTableView:(UITableView *)searchResultsTableView

do

[searchResultsTableView registerNib:[UINib nibWithNibName:@"someNibName" bundle:nil] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"yourReuseId"];

Then you're able to use in

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

the normal

[tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier: