Using UITableViewDataSource methods with static cells - ios

Question

First of all, do not mark this as duplicate right away. I know that using UITableViewDataSource methods with static cells is not recommended and usually results in a crash, but I want to know the behavior that leads to this.
In the IB, I have a UITableViewController with 10 different static cells in a single section. I want to be able to rearrange and separate them into multiple sections without using prototype cells, since they will never be reused. Below are my implementations for the data source methods:
-(NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView{
return self.indexMappings.count;
}
-(NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section{
return [(NSArray*)self.indexMappings[section] count];
}
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{
UITableViewCell *cell;
NSIndexPath *mappedIndexPath = [self getMappedIndexPathForIndexPath:indexPath];
cell = [super tableView:tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:mappedIndexPath];
return cell;
}
The problem here is, if self.indexMappings.count is greater than the number of sections in my static table, the app crashes. But if its less than or equals, the mappings work just fine. For clarification, self.indexMappings is a two dimensional NSArray*. Anyone know the reason for this behavior?

Answer 1

I found out that the way to do this is to also implement some of the UITableViewDataSource methods as well. When the app crashes, it can be seen from the call stack that the methods causing the trouble are methods that determine the header or footer height, or header or footer views, etc. After implementing the following methods to return some default values, the problem was solved.
-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForFooterInSection:(NSInteger)section;
-(NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView indentationLevelForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath;
-(CGFloat)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView heightForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath;