iOS - Pickers

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Use of Pickers

Pickers consist of a rotating scrollable view, which is used for picking a value from the list of items.

Important Properties

• delegate
• dataSource

Important Methods

- (void)reloadAllComponents
- (void)reloadComponent:(NSInteger)component
- (NSInteger)selectedRowInComponent:(NSInteger)component
- (void)selectRow:(NSInteger)row inComponent:(NSInteger)component animated:(BOOL)animated

Update ViewController.h

We will add instances for a text field, a picker view, and an array. We will adopt UITextFieldDelegate, UIPickerViewDataSource and UIPickerViewDelegate protocols. The ViewController.h is as follows −

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface ViewController : UIViewController
   <UITextFieldDelegate, UIPickerViewDataSource, UIPickerViewDelegate> {
   UITextField *myTextField;
   UIPickerView *myPickerView;
   NSArray *pickerArray;
}
@end

Add a Custom Method addPickerView

-(void)addPickerView {
   pickerArray = [[NSArray alloc]initWithObjects:@"Chess", 
   @"Cricket",@"Football",@"Tennis",@"Volleyball", nil];
   myTextField = [[UITextField alloc]initWithFrame:
   CGRectMake(10, 100, 300, 30)];
   myTextField.borderStyle = UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect;
   myTextField.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
   myTextField.delegate = self;
   [self.view addSubview:myTextField];
   [myTextField setPlaceholder:@"Pick a Sport"];
   myPickerView = [[UIPickerView alloc]init];
   myPickerView.dataSource = self;
   myPickerView.delegate = self;
   myPickerView.showsSelectionIndicator = YES;
   UIBarButtonItem *doneButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] 
   initWithTitle:@"Done" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleDone 
   target:self action:@selector(done:)];
   UIToolbar *toolBar = [[UIToolbar alloc]initWithFrame:
   CGRectMake(0, self.view.frame.size.height-
   myDatePicker.frame.size.height-50, 320, 50)];
   [toolBar setBarStyle:UIBarStyleBlackOpaque];
   NSArray *toolbarItems = [NSArray arrayWithObjects: 
   doneButton, nil];
   [toolBar setItems:toolbarItems];
   myTextField.inputView = myPickerView;
   myTextField.inputAccessoryView = toolBar;
}

Implement the delegates as shown below −

#pragma mark - Text field delegates

-(void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField {
   if ([textField.text isEqualToString:@""]) {
      [self dateChanged:nil];
   }
}

#pragma mark - Picker View Data source
-(NSInteger)numberOfComponentsInPickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView {
   return 1;
}

-(NSInteger)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView 
   numberOfRowsInComponent:(NSInteger)component {
   return [pickerArray count];
}

#pragma mark- Picker View Delegate

-(void)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView didSelectRow:
   (NSInteger)row inComponent:(NSInteger)component {
   [myTextField setText:[pickerArray objectAtIndex:row]];
}

- (NSString *)pickerView:(UIPickerView *)pickerView titleForRow:
   (NSInteger)row forComponent:(NSInteger)component {
   return [pickerArray objectAtIndex:row];
}

Update viewDidLoad in ViewController.m as follows −

(void)viewDidLoad {
   [super viewDidLoad];
   [self addPickerView];
}

Output

When we run the application, we'll get the following output −

On selecting the text field, the picker view will be displayed as shown below where we can select our choice −