ios: Programmatically setting static UITableViewCell (not using tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath:)

Question

I have a table view that contains a static set of 2 rows (created in storyboard). I have a specific UITableViewCell that contains a text box thats size is dynamically generated. I would like to also dynamically set the hight for the containing UITableViewCell, however setting the .frame for the UITableViewCell does not seem to be working. Has anyone done this programatically, without using tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath: ?

Current code:

CGSize maximumLabelSize = CGSizeMake(296,9999);
CGSize expectedLabelSize = [self.place.details sizeWithFont:self.descriptionLabel.font 
                                  constrainedToSize:maximumLabelSize 
                                      lineBreakMode:self.descriptionLabel.lineBreakMode]; 

CGRect labelFrame = self.descriptionLabel.frame;
labelFrame.size.height = expectedLabelSize.height;
// this does not change the height of the UITableViewCell....
self.descriptionTableViewCell.frame = labelFrame;

Answer 1

As you've noticed regardless of the height of the UITableViewCell, it is clipped to the height of the UITableView's row for that index path. By the time tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: is called the row heights have already been laid out. Just use tableView:heightForRowAtIndexPath: as this is what it is intended for. A key point is that the table view needs to know the height of all its rows to set up its scroll view, scroll bars, etc. On the other hand it only needs to have the actual cells for what is on screen. See this answer for more discussion on why the UITableViewDelegate works this way.