How to get [tableView indexPathForSelectedRow] From a different View

Question

In my TableViewController.m I can easily get the selected row by doing [tableView indexPathForSelectedRow] but I want to get this value from DIFFERENT view. So when my TableViewController goes to my DetailViewController. I want my DetailViewController to have the data of the selected cell.

Answer 1

In a proper architecture, a Controller is designed so that it acts as a black box to other Controllers. In your example, it's not a very good practice that the Details controller searches for the TableViewController's selected item. Instead your TableViewController should use the DetailViewController as a 'service' and somehow pass the selected object as an argument, or set it as a property of the 'service provider' (DetailController). For example

// this is still the TavleViewController's code
id selectedObject = // ... get selected object somehow... indexPathForSelectedRow or whatever
DetailViewController *newView = [[DetailViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"DetailViewController" bundle:nil];
[newView showDetails:selectedObject];

Here, the function showDetails is just an example, it's a function you implement to pass the seleted object as argument.

EDIT: How you do it depends on your model. Supose each object in your model represents a person. Your MainTableView has a list of names and the detailView shows the details about the selected Person. In such a case, which is typcial, you would have a class that represents Person, and the list of persons would be somewhere in an array. So...

NSIndexPath *i = [tableView indexPathForSelectedRow];
Person *selectedPerson = [self.myArrayOfPersons objectAtIndex:i.row];
// here you instantiate or show the details view
[detailsView showDetails:selectedPerson]; // this is one option, you could also use a property
// for example
detailsView.selectedPerson = selectedPerson; // this is an alternative to the showDetails, 

In the DetailsViewController you could have something like this

- (void)showDetails:(Person *)person
{
    // just fill your controls witht the person's information: age, birth place, address...
    [self.someTextView setText:person.name]
}