Implementation of UITableView, following MVC pattern

Question

According to the Model-View-Controller pattern, applied heavily in Cocoa Touch, UIViewControllers should always handle the logic behind how a concrete UIView in the scene behaves.

I am curious as to how Apple implements it's UITableView class while keeping in line with this philosophy. Especially since UITableView inherits from UIScrollView and UIView in turn.

When you add a UITableView to one of your classes, does it have a UIViewController handling the way it behaves in the background? I know that a UITableViewDelegate is in charge of telling the table how many rows it should have, etc. But what about it's inner workings?

8vius · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-28 02:01:02Z

1

I'm gonna take a wild shot here, because I'm not sure I really follow your question. When you add a UITableView, you HAVE to have a controller associated to it to control how it handles and renders. Either a UITableViewController or a UIViewController that implements UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDatasource. If you don't there's no way you can control what it does.

answered Aug 28, 2012 at 2:01

8vius

5,84614 gold badges78 silver badges137 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

Pedro Mancheno Over a year ago

Yes, I am aware of this. I guess what I'm asking is for example, who does the geometric calculations that determine how the UITableView actually moves? Who is in charge of actually calling the delegate methods?, etc. Does this responsibility belong to the actual UITableView class?

8vius Over a year ago

Remember that the drawing is done in the drawRect method that is present in the UIView class, so it is the view itself that handles how they draw. So all the layout code is present is the view, the controller tells it what it's gonna draw, i.e. the data, and how to respond to user action.

Pedro Mancheno Over a year ago

Doesn't this break the principle of MVC? Shouldn't a UIViewController, for instance, tell a UITable when to call the method in it's delegate UIViewController?

8vius Over a year ago

No, because you are separating drawing and view code code from business logic code.

8vius Over a year ago

It's a clear division of labor. The Model handles data access, Controller handles business logic, and View handles presentation of the data.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Implementation of UITableView, following MVC pattern

1 Answer 1

5 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

5 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related