How to access programatically created UI object from a calss member function - ios

Question

I created a text view programatically and I have an external function outside viewdidload within which I want to change the contents of that textview. How do I achieve that? Here's the code I'm working with
As things stand. I'm currently getting this error "Value of type 'UIView' has no member 'textView' " on the line
self.view.textView.text = "Yo Dawg!!"
class rootViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let myTextView = UITextView(frame: CGRectMake(0,0,100,50))
myTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
myTextView.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
myTextView.font = UIFont (name: "Helvetica Neue", size: 20)
myTextView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
myTextView.text = "Hello World"
self.view.addSubview(timerView)
}//End view did load
func changeText(){//This function updates the text within the textview
self.view.textView.text = "Yo Dawg!!"
}//End change text function
}//End rootViewController

Answer 1

You could assign an unique tag to the textview and use it to get the reference.
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let myTextView = UITextView(frame: CGRectMake(0,0,100,50))
myTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
myTextView.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
myTextView.font = UIFont (name: "Helvetica Neue", size: 20)
myTextView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
myTextView.text = "Hello World"
myTextView.tag = 1
self.view.addSubview(timerView)
}
func changeText(){
if let myTextView = self.view.viewWithTag(1) as? UITextView {
myTextView.text = "Yo Dawg!!"
}
}

Answer 2

You need to keep a reference to your text view in an instance variable/property, not in a local variable:
class rootViewController: UIViewController {
var myTextView:UITextView!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
self.myTextView = UITextView(frame: CGRectMake(0,0,100,50))
self.myTextView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
self.myTextView.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
self.myTextView.font = UIFont (name: "Helvetica Neue", size: 20)
self.myTextView.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
self.myTextView.text = "Hello World"
self.view.addSubview(timerView)
}//End view did load
func changeText(){//This function updates the text within the textview
self.myTextView.text = "Yo Dawg!!"
}//End change text function
}