IBOutlet of UITableViewCell subview is (NULL)

Question

I have a custom UITableViewCell defined in a xib. It has two views in its Content View, a label and a text view.

In my table view controller, using either

JJDTextInputCell *cell = [[SDLTextInputCell alloc] init];

or

JJDTextInputCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"TextInputCell" forIndexPath:indexPath];

the IBOutlet is null, so the table view does not show the default text or any text I try to display using

cell.descriptionLabel.text = @"foo";

What is the proper way to initialize custom UITableView cells created using interface builder?

Answer 1

Initialize them from xib file.

JJDTextInputCell *cell = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"JJDTextInputCell" owner:self options:nil] objectAtIndex:0];

Answer 2

AFAIK, there are two ways to dequeue table cell, you can find them here in the doc. Find them under Creating Table View Cells. You are using dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:forIndexPath: which always returns a valid cell BUT you need to use registerNib:forCellReuseIdentifier: function in pair with this. You have to register the class and then you will get a valid cell. Check out this question for reference.

Answer 3

If you are using XIB for custom cell you should use

[self.tableView registerNib:[UINib nibWithNibName:@"TableViewCell" bundle:nil] forCellReuseIdentifier:"CellIdentifier"];

for registering a cell instead of

[self.tableView registerClass:[TableViewCell class] forCellReuseIdentifier:"CellIdentifier"];