Why am I getting nil for tableview outlet? - ios

Question

When the callback for the TaskListDataSource gets called it reloads both the todayVC and the reviewVC because they are UITableViewControllers. However the plannerVC is not and the tableview property is an outlet.
#IBOutlet weak var tableView: UITableView!
Why is it that when the callback runs it crashes saying it is nil. If I am somehow able to scroll across in the page view however and and view the plannerVC it will never crash as the tableview has been loaded into memory. But why doesn't it do it initially?
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let taskListDataSource = TaskListDataSource {
self.todayVC.tableView.reloadData()
self.plannerVC.tableView.reloadData()
self.reviewVC.tableView.reloadData()
}
todayVC = storyboard!.instantiateViewController(identifier: "TodayViewController", creator: { coder in
return TodayViewController(coder: coder, taskListDataSource: taskListDataSource)
})
plannerVC = storyboard!.instantiateViewController(identifier: "PlannerViewController", creator: { coder in
return PlannerViewController(coder: coder, taskListDataSource: taskListDataSource)
})
reviewVC = storyboard!.instantiateViewController(identifier: "ReviewViewController", creator: { coder in
return ReviewViewController(coder: coder, taskListDataSource: taskListDataSource)
})
addVC = storyboard!.instantiateViewController(identifier: "AddViewController")
setViewControllers([todayVC], direction: .forward, animated: false)
dataSource = self
print(plannerVC.tableView) // Console is printing nil
}

Answer 1

When you call instantiateInitialViewController(creator:), the UIViewController is initiated, but its view (and all subviews, including then all the IBOutlet) aren't loaded in memory.
So when, you try to do self.someIBoutlet (in your case self.plannerVC.tableView.reloadData(), it crashes.
A solution, would be to force the view to load, with loadViewIfNeeded().
Since loading the view can be heavy, it's usually used when the ViewController will be shown shortly after (for instance, in a didSet of some property that access outlet in it, because it will be shown on screen in a few instants, so the view will be loaded anyway, just a few moment after).
Since you are loading 3 UIViewController, could it be that you aren't showing them, but prematurely loading them?
If that's the case, you might rethink your app architecture (all your UIViewController don't need to be initialized and in memory, and less to have their view loaded).
Still, you can check beforehand if the view has been loaded, and that you can access the outlets with isViewLoaded.
I'dd add for that a method in PlannerVC:
func refreshData() {
guard isViewLoaded else { return }
tableView.reloadData()
}
Side note, it could be a protocol (and even more, complexe, like adding var tableView { get set }, and have a default implementation of refreshData(), but that's going further, not necessary)...
protocol Refreshable {
func refreshData()
}
let taskListDataSource = TaskListDataSource {
self.todayVC.refreshData()
self.plannerVC.refreshData()
self.reviewVC.refreshData()
}
Side note, I would check if there isn't memory retain cycles, I would have use a [weak self] in the closure of TaskListDataSource, and also would have made it a property of the VC.