Create multiple UITextFields programmatically using a for loop

Question

Brand new to coding; been utilizing stackoverflow religiously for months; first time asking a question; please be gentle.

I'm trying to create a series of UITextFields programmatically using a for loop. The fields should have names like "pax1name", "pax2name", "pax3name", etc.

The piece I'm missing is how to take a string and make it the name of a textField, changing the name of the textField each time the for-loop executes.

Here's my code, but maybe I'm going about this the wrong way? Thank you in advance!

// set up the names textfields
for (int i = 0; i < 7; i++) {
    NSString *fieldName = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"pax%iname", (i + 1)];

    // I can't figure out what goes here to create a UITextField with the name of fieldName

    textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(15, (15 + (i * 40)), 400, 40)];
    textField.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect;
    textField.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:15.0];
    textField.autocorrectionType = UITextAutocorrectionTypeNo;
    textField.clearButtonMode = UITextFieldViewModeWhileEditing;
    textField.contentVerticalAlignment = UIControlContentVerticalAlignmentCenter;

    [namesViewController addSubview: textField];

    [fieldName release];
    [textField release];
}

+1 for your first SO question being complete, clear, and including code. Well done. — Dan Ray
– Dan Ray, Commented Jul 11, 2011 at 14:20
@DanRay Thanks! I owe it all to the fact that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.... — wannabeacoder
– wannabeacoder, Commented Jul 11, 2011 at 19:58

Florian Mielke · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-12 09:07:06Z

1

Normally you use the UIView property tag for that. Use [textField setTag:<youCustomTag>] in your loop to set the value, e.g. your variable i. Please note that tag expect an NSUInteger and not an NSString.

To access the correct text field afterwards you'd call [[namesViewController view] viewWithTag:<yourCustomTag>].

BUT, is it really necessary to create multiple text fields for your view controller? There might be a more elegant solution by creating just one single text field and setting the tag-property on demand when the user taps a row. I don't know if that would work for you.

edited Jul 12, 2011 at 9:07

answered Jul 11, 2011 at 14:19

Florian Mielke

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2 Comments

wannabeacoder Over a year ago

Thanks to all who helped! This answer was the most helpful, so I'm accepting it. I'll post what I ended up doing, in case anyone else finds it useful.

Florian Mielke Over a year ago

You're welcome. I've edited the code example as you have to call the namesViewConroller's view for it's viewWithTag:.

Simeon · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-11 14:19:43Z

1

I think you've been going the wrong way about this. UITextField has no property called "name". To identify a control, you can use its tag property. See this code:

for (int i = 0; i < 7; i++) {

    UITextField *textField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(...)];
    textField.tag = i + 1;
    ...
}

answered Jul 11, 2011 at 14:19

Simeon

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Comments

Michael Behan · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-11 14:22:01Z

1

When you say the name of the textfield I'm presuming you mean the variable name rather than setting the text that is displayed. I.e. you want to create the variables in a loop, but later be able to reference them individually by name.

In that case, you can't do what you want to do. What you can do is stick them in an array for handy access later on.

NSMutableArray *paxNameFields = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; // before your loop
[paxNameFields addObject: textField]; // inside the loop
[paxNameFields objectAtIndex: 5]; //sometime later use the 6th field

Or if you just want to be able to identify which UITextField you're passed into a delegate callback later on, you can set/check the tag property.

answered Jul 11, 2011 at 14:22

Michael Behan

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Comments

Dan Ray · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-11 14:21:47Z

0

UITextFields don't HAVE names. You're probably coming from HTML-world, where these things are basically a big hash of name-value pairs. Not like that in Cocoa Touch. As @Florian Mielke says, they each have an int .tag property, which is probably what you want to set.

answered Jul 11, 2011 at 14:21

Dan Ray

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