Create 3 UITextView Programmatically - ios

Question

I need to create 3 UTextView programmatically without the need to set each one to a variable using for loop.
Here is a demonstration:
for i in 1...3 {
var textView = UITextView()
self.automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets = false
textView.center = self.view.center
textView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.justified
textView.textColor = UIColor.blue
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.lightGray
self.view.addSubview(textView)
}
How can I do this to make 3 text views and have the ability to control it?

Answer 1

If you need to access the generated text views from other methods in your class or even after the posted for loop, then you need to keep references to them.
Create an array to hold each one. Then you can access then later using the array. If you only need this in the method that creates them then create the array as another local variable. If you need to access the text view's from other places in your class, then make the array a proper of your class (view controller).
var textViews = [UITextView]()
And then in your loop, add:
textViews.append(textView)
Later, when you need to access the text views you can iterate through the array or access individual elements as needed.

Answer 2

Just like #rmaddy said, you will need to store these textViews in an array. You will also need to add constraints to the textViews to help them play nice with autolayout
class MyViewController : UIViewController {
var textViews = [UITextView]()
func createUI() -> Void {
for i in 1...3 {
var textView = UITextView()
self.automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets = false
textView.center = self.view.center
textView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.justified
textView.textColor = UIColor.blue
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.lightGray
self.view.addSubview(textView)
var vertContraint : NSLayoutConstraint
if (i == 1) {
vertContraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textView, attribute: .top, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: self.topLayoutGuide, attribute: .bottom, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 0.0)
} else {
vertContraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textView, attribute: .top, relatedBy: .equal, toItem: textViews[i - 1], attribute: .bottom, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 8.0)
}
//Do the same for your leading, trailing edges
textView.addConstraints([/*vertContraint, leadingContr, trailingContr*/])
textViews.append(textView)
}
}
}

Answer 3

A simple solution would be assigning a tag to each one of the UITextView and then accessing it by assigned tag respectively.
Here is a demonstration of assigning tags:
for i in 1...5 {
var textView = UITextView()
self.automaticallyAdjustsScrollViewInsets = false
textView.center = self.view.center
textView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.justified
textView.textColor = UIColor.blue
textView.backgroundColor = UIColor.lightGray
textView.tag = i
self.view.addSubview(textView)
}
And you can access any assigned UITextView() by tag:
self.view.viewWithTag(1)
self.view.viewWithTag(2)
...
Hope it helps!