iOS UITableView unexpectedly adding margins - ios

Question

I have a UITableView, and currently it has a single cell in it. I have written a custom TableViewCell class which inherits from UITableViewCell in order to do some custom drawing. I have set the width of the table to the desired size, and am trying to set the width of the cell to the same size, so it will fill up the entire width of the table. The problem seems to be that I'm getting some margins on the left and right sides of the cell, and I don't know why.
Here's an example of the problem.
I made the TableView background black to be more clear. The TableView is the correct size. The background image is added to the cell, not the table, and it should be taking up the full width of the table.
I have tried making the TableView wider (as wide as the screen) to try to accommodate the size of the background image, but that doesn't quite do it. I would rather just figure out where these margins are coming from, and how I can get rid of them.
The TableView itself is initialized in Interface Builder. The style is set to Grouped, scrolling is disabled, and the view mode is set to Scale To Fill.
Here's the cell class' initWithStyle method
- (id)initWithStyle:(UITableViewCellStyle)style reuseIdentifier:(NSString *)reuseIdentifier
{
if (self = [super initWithStyle:style reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier]) {
// Initialization code
_primaryLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
_primaryLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentLeft;
_primaryLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:18];
_primaryLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
_detailLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
_detailLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentLeft;
_detailLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:12];
_detailLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
_icon = [[UIImageView alloc] init];
[self.contentView addSubview:_primaryLabel];
[self.contentView addSubview:_detailLabel];
[self.contentView addSubview:_icon];
self.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator;
UIImageView* whiteDisclosureView = [[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 15, 13)];
[whiteDisclosureView setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"white_disclosure.png"]];
self.accessoryView = whiteDisclosureView;
UIImageView * background = [[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 305, 61)];
[background setImage:[UIImage imageNamed:#"button_silver.png"]];
[self setBackgroundView:background];
self.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
self.frame = self.contentView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 305, 61);
}
return self;
}

Answer 1

Is your tableView using "grouped" style? With grouped style, iOS normally adds left and right margin for the table cells.
It may be possible to remedy this by adjusting the frame of the tableView to slightly outside its superview. See here for example in previous question

Answer 2

You shouldn't explicitly set your cell's frame (size), but declare its style. (If you don't do that already) The cells are designed to automatically take up the whole space. (Horizontally)
cell = [[CustomCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
If not when allocating your cell, how do you set the cell's frame?
EDIT: Instead of using hardcoded frame sizes, use self.frame. Additionally, remove the last statement where you set the frame.

Answer 3

Another alternative solution I used.
#jonkroll's solution does work but it does not fulfil my need. I have a header section in the table view which I want to keep the margin left and right as is, but want to remove them on the normal cell.
The solution I did is to implement a layoutSubViews method in a custom table view cell. Within this method, set the contentView's width equal to table cell's width.
-(void)layoutSubviews {
self.contentView.frame.size.width = self.frame.size.width;
}
This may be very late, but I think some people will run into the same problem as well. Hope this solution works for you guys : )