Unable to deque cell with identifier title - ios

Question

I am getting the following error when I press a button that opens a tableview:
Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'unable to dequeue a cell with identifier title - must register a nib or a class for the identifier or connect a prototype cell in a storyboard'
Here is the code in the view controller for the tableview and the method that's causing the problem:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
NSString *CellIdentifier = [menuItems objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier forIndexPath:indexPath];
return cell;
}
I researched the error and I tried removing the forIndexPath:indexPath so the code looked like:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
NSString *CellIdentifier = [menuItems objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
return cell;
}
Now this caused a new error:
Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'UITableView dataSource must return a cell from tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:
now I did some logging to find out that cell == nil was true so I added a check for that as suggested by some earlier questions:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
NSString *CellIdentifier = [menuItems objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
if(cell == nil){
cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] init]
}
return cell;
}
Now this removed all errors but now when I open the tableview, the cells are empty when I want the ones that I created in the storyboard.
How do I fix this problem?
Here is what the View Controller looks like in the storyboard:

Answer 1

there are two cell recycle methods you can call on a UITable
View,
-(UITableViewCell *) dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:forIndexPath:
-(UITableViewCell *)dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:
its somewhat confusing, but they are quite different in how they are used. The one which takes a second argument (of type NSIndexPath) is dependant on you first having registered a class or xib file with the tableView, in order that the tableView can create a cell ad-hoc for you when there isn't one handy for recycling. This first method will always return a cell, so you can code your cellForRowAtIndexPath: much like you have.
the second method (which takes only one argument, the (NSString *)cellIdentifier can and will return nil when there is no cell handy for recycling. So when you use this one you should test the result for nil and create a cell in that case.
eg
-(UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{
static NSString *cellId = #"cellID";
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellId];
if (!cell) {
cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc]initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle reuseIdentifier:cellId];
}
//etc etc decorate your cell...
return cell;
}
In order to exploit your cell prototypes you will need to register a class or xib for each row/section, so that the table knows which cell to create. The recycling stuff only really works once enough cells have been created to fill the screen and you start scrolling. Good luck

Answer 2

If you are creating your prototype cells in a Storyboard you need to set the "Identifier" field for them to your "CellIdentifier" string. You can do this by selecting the cell and looking in the Attributes Inspector.
If you are creating a separate .xib file for your UITableViewCell you need to call this method on your UITableView in code somewhere:
registerNib:forCellReuseIdentifier:
If you are doing everything in code and just using a UITableViewCell subclass that knows how to layout itself then you need to call this method on your UITableView:
registerClass:forCellReuseIdentifier:
Here is a link to the reference docs