Identify a UIButton that is pressed in swift?

Question

How can I identify a UIButton element as a string and use that string in a function call? I want to be able to know what button has been pressed and then provide information based on that button that has been pressed. Would I use String Interpolation? I then want to use the string and run a query from the Foursquare API.

Below is the code I have been working on:

Firstly the button names:

let buttonNames = ["african", "buffet", "burger", "chinese", "fries", "grill", "icecream", "jap", "mex", "pizza", "seafood", "streetfood", "taj", "turkey"

The search term results:

var searchTerms = ["African", "All you can eat", "Buffet", "Burgers", "Brazilian", "Breakfast", "BBQ", "Chips", "Chinese", "Cakes", "Café", "Doughnuts", "Dessert", "English Breakfast", "Fast Food", "Fries", "French", "Grill", "Greek", "Italian", "Indian", "Japanese", "Jamaican", "Lebenese", "Mexican", "Pizza", "Street Food", "Sandwhich", "Turkish"]

Then the function call :

@IBAction func startSearchQuery() {
    if buttonNames == searchTerms {
        // Do Something
        var parameters = [Parameter.query:""]
        parameters += self.location.parameters()
        let searchTask = session.venues.search(parameters) {
            (result) -> Void in
            if let response = result.response {
                self.venues = response["venues"] as [JSONParameters]?
                self.tableView.reloadData()
            }
        }
        searchTask.start()
    } else {
        print("Search term not found!")
    }
}

If I can get some help on this I will be grateful. Thanks all!

Answer 1

Put a tag on the button, you can do this programmatically or on the attribute inspector, the default tag is 0

button.tag = index

@IBAction func startSearchQuery(sender: AnyObject) {

 let button = sender as! UIButton
 let index = button.tag
 let buttonName = buttonNames[index]
  ....
}

Answer 2

Create two arrays of buttons and search terms.

@IBAction func startSearchQuery(sender: UIButton)
{
    let searchTerm = searchTerms[buttons.indexOf(sender)
    //do your staff
}

Or you can set/get accessibility labels for buttons.

Answer 3

  @IBAction func myButton(_ sender: UIButton?) {
             let button = sender
             if button?.allControlEvents != .touchUpInside {
                 print("button not pressed from the button")
             } else {
                 print("button pressed from the button")
             }
        }