http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5210535/passing-data-between-view-controllers
This question seems to be very popular here on stackoverflow so I thought I would try and give a better answer to help out people starting in the world of iOS like me.
I hope this answer is clear enough for people to understand and that I have not missed anything.
Passing Data Forward
Passing data forward to a view controller from another view controller. You would use this method if you wanted to pass an object/value from one view controller to another view controller that you may be pushing on to a navigation stack.
For this example we will have ViewControllerA
and ViewControllerB
To pass a BOOL
value from ViewControllerA
to ViewControllerB
- in
ViewControllerB.h
- create a property for the
BOOL
@property(nonatomic) BOOL *isSomethingEnabled;
- in
ViewControllerA
- you need to tell it about
ViewControllerB
#import "ViewControllerB.h"
Then where you want to load the view eg. didSelectRowAtIndex
or some IBAction
you need to set the property in ViewControllerB
ViewControllerB*viewControllerB =[[ViewControllerB alloc] initWithNib:@"ViewControllerB" bundle:nil];
viewControllerB.isSomethingEnabled = YES;[self pushViewController:viewControllerB animated:YES];
This will set isSomethingEnabled
in ViewControllerB
to BOOL
value YES
.
Passing Data Forward using Segues
If you are using Storyboards you are most likely using segues and will need this procedure to pass data forward. This is similar to the above but instead of passing the data before you push the view controller, you use a method called
-(void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue*)segue sender:(id)sender
So to pass a BOOL
from ViewControllerA
to ViewControllerB
- in
ViewControllerB.h
- create a property for the
BOOL
@property(nonatomic) BOOL *isSomethingEnabled;
- in
ViewControllerA
- you need to tell it about
ViewControllerB
#import "ViewControllerB.h"
- Create a the segue from
ViewControllerA
- to
ViewControllerB
- on the storyboard and give it an identifier, in this example we'll call it
"showDetailSegue"
- Next we need to add the method to
ViewControllerA
- that is called when any segue is performed, because of this we need to detect which segue was called and then do something. In our example we will check for
"showDetailSegue"
- and if thats performed we will pass our
BOOL
- value to
ViewControllerB
-(void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue*)segue sender:(id)sender{if([segue.identifier isEqualToString:@"showDetailSegue"]){ViewControllerB*controller =(ViewControllerB*)segue.destinationViewController;
controller.isSomethingEnabled = YES;}}
If you have your views embedded in a navigation controller you need to change the method above slightly to the following
-(void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue*)segue sender:(id)sender{if([segue.identifier isEqualToString:@"showDetailSegue"]){UINavigationController*navController =(UINavigationController*)segue.destinationViewController;ViewControllerB*controller =(ViewControllerB*)navController.topViewController;
controller.isSomethingEnabled = YES;}}
This will set isSomethingEnabled
in ViewControllerB
to BOOL
value YES
.
Passing Data Back
To pass data back from ViewControllerB
to ViewControllerA
you need to use Protocols and Delegates or Blocks, the latter can be used as a loosely coupled mechanism for callbacks.To do this we will make ViewControllerA
a delegate of ViewControllerB
. This allows ViewControllerB
to send a message back to ViewControllerA
For ViewControllerA
to be delegate of ViewControllerB
it must conform to ViewControllerB
's protocol which we have to specify. This tells ViewControllerA
- In
ViewControllerB.h
- , below the
#import
- , but above
@interface
@classViewControllerB;@protocolViewControllerBDelegate<NSObject>-(void)addItemViewController:(ViewControllerB*)controller didFinishEnteringItem:(NSString*)item;@end
- next still in the
ViewControllerB.h
- you need to setup a
delegate
- property and synthesize in
ViewControllerB.m
@property(nonatomic, weak) id <ViewControllerBDelegate>delegate;
- In
ViewControllerB
- we call a message on the
delegate
NSString*itemToPassBack =@"Pass this value back to ViewControllerA";[self.delegate addItemViewController:self didFinishEnteringItem:itemToPassBack];
- That's it for
ViewControllerB
- . Now in
ViewControllerA.h
- , tell
ViewControllerA
- to import
ViewControllerB
#import "ViewControllerB.h"@interfaceViewControllerA:UIViewController<ViewControllerBDelegate>
- In
ViewControllerA.m
-(void)addItemViewController:(ViewControllerB*)controller didFinishEnteringItem:(NSString*)item
{NSLog(@"This was returned from ViewControllerB %@",item);}
- Before pushing
viewControllerB
- to navigation stack we need to tell
ViewControllerB
- that
ViewControllerA
ViewControllerB*viewControllerB =[[ViewControllerB alloc] initWithNib:@"ViewControllerB" bundle:nil];
viewControllerB.delegate= self
[[self navigationController] pushViewController:viewControllerB animated:YES];
References
- Using Delegation to Communicate With Other View Controllers in theView Controller Programming Guide
- Delegate Pattern
Further Help
- Stackoverflow Documentation on Passing data between View Controllers
There are many answers to this questions offering many different ways to perform view controller communication that would indeed work, but I don't see anywhere mentioned which one are actually best to use and which ones to avoid.
In practice, in my opinion only a few solutions are recommended:
- To pass data forward:
- override the
prepare(for:sender:)
- method of
UIViewController
- pass data through an initializer or through properties when performing view controller transitions thtough code
- To pass data backwards
- update the app shared state (which you can pass forward between view controllers with either one of the methods above)
- use delegation
- use an unwind segue
Solutions I recommend NOT to use:
- Referencing the previous controller directly instead of using delegation
- Sharing data through a singleton
- Passing data through the app delegate
- Sharing data through the user defaults
- Passing data through notifications
These solutions, although working in the short term, introduce too many dependencies that will garble the architecture of the app and create more problems later.
For those interested, I wrote some articles that address these points more in depth and highlight the various drawbacks:
- How iOS View Controllers Communicate With Each Other
- How to Structure the Code of iOS Apps
- Understanding the Core Architectural Principles of iOS Development with a Practical Example