Create a multi dimensional array in swift and use the data to populate 3 tableviews

Welcome to swift user1263909

How to create an array of strings

let stringArray = [String]()

How to create an array of strings with string literals

let categoryStringArray = ["Category1", "Catagory2", "Catagory3"]

How to create an array of string array's

let arrayOfArray = [[String]]()

how to create an array of string array literals

let a = [["Category1", "Catagory2", "Catagory3"],["product1", "product2", "product3"]]

accessing "Catagory3"

a[0][2]

However this all can get complicated fast. Why not use some structs?

struct Product {
    var name:String
    var description:String
    var price:Double
    //ect...
}

use struct to encapsulate data for easy use

let p1 = Product(name: "hat", description: "a hat", price: 2.00)

lets make an array of structs.

let arrOfProduct = [p1,Product(name: "tie", description: "a bow tie", price: 5.00)]

arrOfProduct now has two structs in it a tie and a hat. How to access hat's price

arrOfProduct[0].price

oh we could also have a struct for catagories, it can contain products as an array

struct Category {
    var name:String
    var products:[Product]
}

Lets create a Category for Clothes.

let clothes = Category(name: "Clothing", products: arrOfProduct)

lets create another catagory

let food = Category(name: "Food", products: [Product(name: "Candy", description: "Yummy Candy", price: 2.0)])

and finally we can have an array of Catagory

let arrC = [clothes,food]

now I can loop through all catagories in first table view to fill out the cell names

for c in arrC{
    print(c.name)
}

when you switch to a new view controller pass it the correct array of products

let productsClicked = arrC[0].products

then on that new view controller loop the products

for p in productsClicked{
    print(p.name)
}

if they click a product pass the product to the next view controller and so on. this will be much easier to maintain as you get new requirments.

Goodluck and welcome to swift. :D