So now you have set up different view controllers in the storyboard and wanting to pass the input data gotten from one view controller to another for display purpose or processing. This post will show you 3 ways to do it and discuss when to use them.
The 3 ways are :
1 - Segue, in prepareForSegue method
Assume you have two view controller set up in storyboard like this,
Link the InputViewController to DisplayViewController by clicking the yellow round icon on top of InputViewController, then press and hold control and drag it to DisplayViewController. After releasing the mouse click, select 'Show' inside Manual Segue.
Then select the segue between view controller, and set an identifier for it, we will use this identifier on the next step. Usually my naming convention will be "sourceVCtoDestinationVC".
When the Next button is tapped, we will tell the InputViewController to perform the segue. The segue identifier is used here. This method tells the InputViewController to perform a segue to DisplayViewController.
The sender parameter refer to the object which initiated this segue, we put 'self' to indicate that this segue is initiated by the InputViewController.
class InputViewController: UIViewController {
...
@IBAction func nextTapped(_ sender: Any) {
self.performSegue(withIdentifier: "InputVCToDisplayVC", sender: self)
}
...
}
You can now build the app and tap Next, it will show the display view controller, but the data is not passed yet.
In InputViewController, if there is a MARK: - Navigation , uncomment the code below it. Else add the following code :
override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
}
The prepare(for segue:, sender:) method will be called by the view controller just before a segue is performed. You can pass the data to the next view controller here.
Lets put a name string variable in Display View Controller to hold the name input data.
class DisplayViewController: UIViewController {
...
var name: String?
...
}
In the prepareForSegue method in InputViewController, add the following code :
override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
if(segue.identifier == "InputVCToDisplayVC"){
let displayVC = segue.destination as! DisplayViewController
displayVC.name = nameTextField.text
}
}
This will set the name variable of the DisplayViewController before it is displayed. Since we already know the destination of the segue (the view controller to be presented) is a DisplayViewController, we can safely downcast it to DisplayViewController.
Inside the DisplayViewController viewDidLoad method, you can set nameLabel.text = name . Now you have successfully pass data forward from one controller to another using prepareForSegue method.
2 - Delegate
So now you want to pass a data to the previous view controller (InputViewController) as the current view controller (DisplayViewController) will be dismissed/popped. How do we do this as segue is uni directional? Assume the view controller is presented using the segue way shown above , we will add a protocol and a weak variable named 'delegate' to the destination (DisplayViewController) view controller.
// DisplayViewController.swift
protocol DisplayViewControllerDelegate : NSObjectProtocol{
func doSomethingWith(data: String)
}
class DisplayViewController: UIViewController {
weak var delegate : DisplayViewControllerDelegate?
}
This is the Delegate Concept and Protocol used by Apple Cocoa Library. This is how the tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) work when you tap on a row in table view. The reason for using weak var for the delegate is to avoid retain cycle (both source view controller and destination view controller has a strong reference to each other, causing ARC to not free the memory), read more about ARC memory management here .
The gist of it is that you don't need to know what class is the source controller, as long as the source controller implements the method doSomethingWith(data:), it will work. There might be cases where multiple controller has their own segue to the same destination view controller, it will be cumbersome to remember what class is the source view controller, so we will just make sure all of the source view controllers conform to the DisplayViewControllerDelegate protocol by implementing the doSomethingWith(data:) method.
In the prepareForSegue method of the source view controller, set the delegate variable to self.
// InputViewController.swift
override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
if(segue.identifier == "InputVCToDisplayVC"){
let displayVC = segue.destination as! DisplayViewController
displayVC.delegate = self
}
}
You might see Xcode complain that Cannot assign value of type 'InputViewController' to type 'DisplayViewControllerDelegate?' , this is because you didn't conform the view controller to DisplayViewControllerDelegate, you can fix it by adding it to the back end view controller declaration line :
class InputViewController: UIViewController, DisplayViewControllerDelegate {
...
}
Shortly after, you will see Xcode complains Type 'InputViewController' does not conform to protocol 'DisplayViewControllerDelegate' , this is because you haven't implement the doSomethingWith(data:) declared in the DisplayViewControllerDelegate protocol. Simply add the method to the view controller to fix it :
// InputViewController.swift
func doSomethingWith(data: String) {
// Do something here after receiving data from destination view controller
}
So now when you want to pass a data from destination view controller back to the source view controller, you can call the delegate like this :
// DisplayViewController.swift
// Whenever you want to pass a data back
if let delegate = delegate{
delegate.doSomethingWith(data: "John Cena")
}
Then the doSomethingWith(data:) method on the source view controller will be called.
3 - Setting variable directly
This step is for presenting view controller or pushing view controller programmatically without using storyboard segue.
In some cases, a view controller might have multiple entry point from other view controllers, which is not following a specified flow. You can use Storyboard ID to initialize the destination view controller programmatically. Select the view controller in storyboard, and set the "Storyboard ID" in the Identity Inspector tab.
Then in the source view controller, you can present it like this :
// InputViewController.swift
@IBAction func nextTapped(_ sender: Any) {
// the name for UIStoryboard is the file name of the storyboard without the .storyboard extension
let displayVC : DisplayViewController = UIStoryboard(name: "Main", bundle: nil).instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "DisplayVC") as! DisplayViewController
displayVC.name = "John Cena"
self.present(displayVC, animated: true, completion: nil)
}
If you are using xib, refer to this Stack Overflow answer.
When to use which method for passing data
For forward data passing
If you are using segue to go to next view controller, use the prepareForSegue. The pros of this method is that this is straight forward and easy, the cons is that this method is only effective for simple segue flow.
If you are using view controller with Xib, without segue flow, or programmatically, instantiate the view controller programmatically and set variable directly (Forward).
For backward data passing
Use the delegate pattern.
Notes
Avoid using NSNotification to pass data as this will make your life hard when debugging later (you need to check which view controllers has the observer for a certain NSNotification Name).
