Hide empty cells in UITableView

Question

I have a searchable tableview, but would like to only display the number of cells that are returned once a user starts a search. For instance, if a user types in a charecter and there is only one cell that matches the search, the remaining cells the remaining cells of the table are empty. I was wondering if there is a way to hide those empty cells. I was also wondering if there is a way to hide the table view if a person's search does not match any data (by default, it displays a table of empty cells saying "No Results").

Thanks.

Solution 1

Change your implementation of tableView:numberOfRowsInSection: in your data source to return the number of search results instead of the total number of items. Then populate those cells with the search results instead of with the rest of the data.

Solution 2

Set the tableFooterView to some dummy view ([[UIView new] autorelease] will work fine). This prompts the UITableView to show the footer (which will have zero size) in place of the empty 'cells'.

Solution 3

- (void) viewDidLoad
{
  [super viewDidLoad];
 *// self.tableView.tableFooterView = [[[UIView alloc] init] autorelease];*   
  *//Since memory management is controlled by ARC now, so ignore autorelease*
  self.tableView.tableFooterView = [[UIView alloc] init] ;
}

Comments

[TomSwift]

@codejunkie - I haven't tried; should work fine but you dont need the autorelease.

[codejunkie]

@TomSwift same code complains when doing that i guess need to look up more what to replace in iOS5 for autorelease

[TomSwift]

@codejunkie - if you're using ARC you dont autorelease. Just use [UIView new]

[codejunkie]

@TomSwift ok i see it hidden cells which were created by default by view "but" it doesnt hide my main problem as i have some empty cell which are selectable but have no-content how can i hide them? i have asked a new question for this.

[codejunkie]

Question asked here: stackoverflow.com/questions/9859427/…

[Daniel]

Although this answer is good. NEVER call new --- always alloc init

[TomSwift]

@Daniel - I prefer 'new' for parameterless initialization. There's no reason not to use it IMO.

[Jacob Relkin]

@Daniel +new is just a convenience method - there's nothing wrong with using it.

[skwashua]

Works great! Tested iOS 6 & ARC

[mrmuggles]

self.tableView.tableFooterView = [[UIView alloc] init]; worked but I got an error with autorelease (autorelease is unavailable: not available in automatic reference counting mode)

[yunas]

I have updated the answer, hope its more understandable.