How to get data from UITableView cell to a global variable

Question

I am trying to save the text of a cell within my UITableView for later usage. I saw on a different Stack Overflow posts it was recommended to use

sender.view

when I print it out to the console, the respose is:

Optional(<UITableViewCell: 0x7f8e0a803400; frame = (0 0; 375 50); text = 'Event 1'; clipsToBounds = YES; autoresize = W; gestureRecognizers = <NSArray: 0x60400024f150>; layer = <CALayer: 0x60400002b940>>)

However when I try to access

sender.view?.text

XCode shows an error saying

Value of type 'UIView' has no member 'text'

I have not found any ways to get the text from a UIView, is it even possible, if so how? Thanks in advance!

Edit:

sender is a UITapGestureRecognizer I am passing into the method from the button press

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) ->   UITableViewCell {
    let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "cell", for: indexPath)
    let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(handleTapGesture))
    tapGesture.numberOfTapsRequired = 1
    tapGesture.numberOfTouchesRequired = 1
    cell.textLabel?.text = mydata[indexPath.item]
    cell.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)
    cell.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
    return cell
}


@objc func handleTapGesture(sender: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
    performSegue(withIdentifier: "SegueToScanner", sender: self)
}

Answer 1

Try to cast the sender.view as a UITableViewCell, then you should be able to access the cell's textLabel.

guard let cell = sender.view as? UITableViewCell else {
    //error handling
    return
}

let text = cell.textLabel.text

Answer 2

Not sure why're using a tap gesture recognizer over a tableView cell. Here's another solution which might be of use to you.

You can use func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) delegate method from UITableViewDelegate

In your case it should look something like this.

extension YourViewController: UITableViewDelegate {
    func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
        if let cell = tableView.cellForRow(at: indexPath) as? UITableViewCell {
             let text = cell.textLabel?.text
    }
}

Make sure your ViewController conforms to UITableViewDelegate in viewDidLoad