Dynamic Custom TableView Cell swift

Question

I have an application where I used table view with custom cells which works fine. The problem I am having now is I want to make it dynamic by this, the number of cell is not fixed. That is, the cell could be 1, 2, 3 or 5, depending on the count of an array. This cell UI varies, too

Cell1: could have an image and a label.
Cell2: could have two labels.
Cell3: could have a dayPicker.

this is the way to create the cells when I know the number returned

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
    return 3
}

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    if indexPath.row == 0 {
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "firstTableCell") as! FirstTableCell
        // Set up cell.label
        return cell
    } else if indexPath.row == 1 {
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "secondTableCell") as! SecondTableCell
        // Set up cell.button
        return cell
    } else {
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "thirdTableCell") as! ThirdTableCell
        // Set up cell.textField
        return cell
    }
}

but now numberOfRowsInSection varies and so those the view items.

how can I do this? Programmatically or otherwise, programmatically preferred.

Answer 1

A dynamic table view can be accomplished with an appropriate data model.

For example use an enum for the kind and a struct with a member to indicate the kind

enum CellKind {
    case image, label, picker
}

struct Model {
    let kind : CellKind

    // other struct members
}

How many cells are displayed depends on the items in the data source array

var items = [Model]()

In numberOfRows return the number of items

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {
    return items.count
}

In cellForRow display the cells depending on the kind rather than on the index path

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    let item = items[indexPath.row]
    switch item.kind {
    case .image:
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "imageCell") as! ImageCell
        // Set up cell.image
        return cell
    case .label:
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "labelCell") as! LabelCell
        // Set up cell.label
        return cell
    case .picker:
        let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "pickerCell") as! PickerCell
        // Set up cell.picker
        return cell
    }
}