Dealing with UITableViewCells partially defined in xib partially augmented by code

Question

I have some cells that have some static content defined in Xib and some dynamic content (a table inside a cell) that depends on the datamodel.

So I register Nibs for a synthetic identifier late like so:

 #define LEFTCELLXIB @"P97PromoCardsLeft"
 #define RIGHTCELLXIB @"P97PromoCardsRight"
 #define TOPCELLXIB @"P97PromoCardsTop"
 #define BOTTOMCELLXIB @"P97PromoCardsBottom"

 #define LEFTREUSEPREFIX @"PromoCardImageLeft"
 #define RIGHTREUSEPREFIX @"PromoCardImageRight"
 #define TOPREUSEPREFIX @"PromoCardImageTop"
 #define BOTTOMREUSEPREFIX @"PromoCardImageBottom"

- (NSString *)getCellIdentifier
{
    // cell height varies
    NSString *ident = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %ld", [self getCellIdentifierPrefix], (long)[self.promotion presentableLinksCount]];
return ident;
}


 - (NSString *)getCellIdentifierPrefix
 {
     NSString *cellIdentifier = TOPREUSEPREFIX;

     switch (self.promotion.imagePos)
     {
         case left:
             cellIdentifier = LEFTREUSEPREFIX;
             break;
         case right:
             cellIdentifier = RIGHTREUSEPREFIX;
             break;
         case top:
             cellIdentifier = TOPREUSEPREFIX;
             break;
         case bottom:
             cellIdentifier = BOTTOMREUSEPREFIX;
             break;
         default:
             break;
     }
     return cellIdentifier;
 }

 - (NSString *)getXibIdentifier
 {
     NSString *xibIndentifier = @"PromoCardImageTop";

     switch (self.promotion.imagePos)
     {
         case left:
             xibIndentifier = LEFTCELLXIB;
             break;
         case right:
             xibIndentifier = RIGHTCELLXIB;
             break;
         case top:
             xibIndentifier = TOPCELLXIB;
             break;
         case bottom:
             xibIndentifier = BOTTOMCELLXIB;
             break;
         default:
             break;
     }
     return xibIndentifier;
 }


 - (id)getCell4:(UITableView*)tableView
 {
     UINib *nib = [UINib nibWithNibName:[self getXibIdentifier] bundle:nil];
     NSString *cid = [self getCellIdentifier];
     [tableView registerNib:nib forCellReuseIdentifier:cid];

     UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cid];
     NSAssert(cell, @"standard dequeue mechanism must work, fix this");
     return cell;
 }

late. but it does not quite work at runtime:

reason: 'cell reuse indentifier in nib (PromoCardImageTop) does not match the identifier used to register the nib (PromoCardImageTop 1)'

Any ideas how to deal with this?

The fact that there was

• (__kindof UITableViewCell *)dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier forIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(6_0); // newer dequeue method guarantees a cell is returned and resized properly, assuming identifier is registered

added in ios 6 hints that there is some mechanism to accomplish what I'm trying to achieve.

Similar to this question:

Xcode 4.2 "cell reuse indentifier in nib (Cell) does not match the identifier used to register the nib (ThisCell)"

Answer 1

The solution is rather ugly:

registerClass:forCellReuseIdentifier:

must be used instead of

registerNib: forCellReuseIdentifier:

and then you'd have a rather ugly constructor wasting the object from [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier] and thusly not portable to swift:

- (instancetype)initWithStyle:(UITableViewCellStyle)style reuseIdentifier:(nullable NSString *)reuseIdentifier
{
if (self = [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier]) {
    NSArray *ugly = [reuseIdentifier componentsSeparatedByString:@" "];
    NSString *cid = ugly[0];
    NSString *xibid = whateverfallbackis;
    if([cid isEqual:LEFTREUSEPREFIX]) {
        xibid = LEFTCELLXIB;
    } else
    if([cid isEqual:RIGHTREUSEPREFIX]) {
        xibid = RIGHTCELLXIB;
    } else
    if([cid isEqual:TOPREUSEPREFIX]) {
        xibid = TOPCELLXIB;
    } else
    if([cid isEqual:BOTTOMREUSEPREFIX]) {
        xibid = BOTTOMCELLXIB;
    } else {
        NSAssert(0, @"implement");
    }
    NSArray *cells = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:xibid owner:self options:nil];
    return cells.firstObject;
}
return self;
}