UITableView won't present - ios

Question

I have a very strange situation in my app and i can't explain or locate the bug.
I have a UIViewController with a tableView in it.
In the table view I have 3 prototype cells, also i have 2 section that are divided like so:
first section: row 0 (cell ID: episodeScrollersCell)
second section: row 0 (cell ID: addCommentsCell)
: row 1+ (cell ID: commentCell)
The required methods in the protocol are listed below.
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
{
return 2;
}
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
NSInteger rowNum;
if(section == 0){
rowNum = 1;
}else{
rowNum = 1; // here is the problem. If i change the number of row to above 1
}
return rowNum;
}
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
static NSString *cellIdentifier;
if(indexPath.section == 0){
cellIdentifier = episodeScrollersCell;
}else if (indexPath.section == 1 && indexPath.row == 0){
cellIdentifier = addCommentsCell;
}else{
cellIdentifier = commentCell;
}
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellIdentifier];
return cell;
}
Now the problem arises when I want to have 2 rows or above in the second section (i.e to have 2 prototype cells in one section), the view Controller won't show. I've logged the cellForRowAtIndexPath: method to see if the cells gets loaded and they do.
Any advice?
Thanks,

Answer 1

What you seem to be doing is trying to dequeue a reusable cell with a chance that no cell has been created before. However, if no cells have been created/allocated, then the dequeue will return a nil value. This tells the program that for the given indexPath there is NO cell to be displayed.
So, if you get a nil value from the dequeue function, your table will try to create a new cell with the given cell identifier. So, I would suggest you do something like the following:
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
static NSString *cellIdentifier;
if(indexPath.section == 0){
cellIdentifier = episodeScrollersCell;
}else if (indexPath.section == 1 && indexPath.row == 0){
cellIdentifier = addCommentsCell;
}else{
cellIdentifier = commentCell;
}
UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:cellIdentifier];
if(!cell){
if(indexPath.section == 0){
//Initialise a new cell here, through a NIB or code
//For eg. cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle: ...];
}
//Do the specific initialisation for each type of cell you need here
}
return cell;
}
This way, when the dequeue function returns a NIL value, your program automatically creates a new cell to fit in that place.
Hope this helps.