Retain cells in UITableView in Swift?

Question

UITableView by default reuse cells. But in my case some cells have a UITextField object and I don't want to loose its value when the cell is reused. The table has few rows so I can handle all the cells in memory.

Example of code I currently use:

override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        tableView.register(UINib(nibName: "TPAddressInfoTableViewCell", bundle: nil), forCellReuseIdentifier: InfoCellIdentifier)
        ...

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
        let item = items[indexPath.row]
        switch item.appearance {
        case .textWithTitle:
            let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: InfoCellIdentifier) as! TPAddressInfoTableViewCell
            return cell
        case .picker:
            ...

How to retain such cells correctly? Linking UITextFieldDelegate of each cell to current UIViewController seems to be extra in this case.

Answer 1

Don't retain cells .

Save all values of the UI elements of the cell in the data model and restore the values in cellForRow .

For example pass the corresponding model item to the cell in cellForRow and save the text field string in a property when it changes.
Alternatively use a callback closure to update the property in the controller.