UITextField autolayout with margins programmatically - ios

Question

I'm new to AutoLayout and would like to display my UITextField at 100% width with a consistent 15px left and right margin, like so:
Typically I would do this using CGRect, setting the width to the containing view's width minus 30px, then offset the left side by 15px:
searchTextField.frame = CGRectMake(15, 0, view.frame.width - 30, 50)
But I'd like to learn AutoLayout for this sort of thing, since it's the way to go these days. I should note that I am doing everything programmatically -- no Storyboards here.
I'd love it if someone could help me out!
Update
Wow! Thank you for all the responses. I believe all of them would achieve what I'm trying to do, but there can only be one :)

Answer 1

Usually I use for this cocoapod that is dealing with constraints, but if you need pure apple solution documentation states:
You have three choices when it comes to programmatically creating
constraints: You can use layout anchors, you can use the
NSLayoutConstraint class, or you can use the Visual Format Language.
Approach with NSLayoutConstraints in your case would be:
NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: .Leading, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: parentView, attribute: .LeadingMargin, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 15.0).active = true
NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: .Trailing, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: parentView, attribute: .TrailingMargin, multiplier: 1.0, constant: -15.0).active = true
NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: .Top, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: parentView, attribute: .TopMargin, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 50.0).active = true
Remember that if you don't have any constraints in the view, they would be added automatically and you'll have to deal with them and conflicts that would be created by adding new constraints on runtime. To avoid this you could either create textField manually and add it to the view or set constraints with low priority in the Interface Builder .

Answer 2

Assuming the parent of the text field is view, do this after view.addSubview(searchTextField):
NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([
searchTextField.leadingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(view.leadingAnchor, constant: 15),
searchTextField.trailingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(view.trailingAnchor, constant: -15),
])

Answer 3

Use this code:
let topConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Top, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: self.view, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Top, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 0)
let trailingConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Trailing, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: self.view, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Trailing, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 15)
let leadingConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Leading, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: self.view, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Leading, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 15)
let heightConstraint = NSLayoutConstraint(item: textField, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.Height, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: nil, attribute: NSLayoutAttribute.NotAnAttribute, multiplier: 1.0, constant: 50)
self.view.addConstraint(topConstraint )
self.view.addConstraint(trailingConstraint)
self.view.addConstraint(leadingConstraint)
self.view.addConstraint(heightConstraint)

Answer 4

Set the constraints in storyboard.
Click on the text field then click on in the bottom left. From there you can choose constraints like that.

Answer 5

To use Auto Layout, you need to define constraints for your text field.Here, I have created four constraints(Leading, Trailing, Top and Height) related to its superview.
func addLabelConstraints(superView:UIView) {
let leading = NSLayoutConstraint(item: searchTextField, attribute: .Leading, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: superView, attribute: .Leading, multiplier: 1, constant: 15)
superview!.addConstraint(leading)
let trailing = NSLayoutConstraint(item: searchTextField, attribute: .Trailing, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: superView, attribute: .Trailing, multiplier: 1, constant: 15)
superView.addConstraint(trailing)
let top = NSLayoutConstraint(item: searchTextField, attribute: .Top, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: superView, attribute: .Top, multiplier: 1, constant: 0)
superView.addConstraint(top)
let height = NSLayoutConstraint(item: searchTextField, attribute: .Height, relatedBy: .Equal, toItem: nil, attribute: .Height, multiplier: 0, constant: 50)
superView.addConstraint(height)
}