Centering subview's X in autolayout throws “no

Question

I have a custom UIView subclass which is being initialized via a nib.

In -awakeFromNib, I'm creating a subview and attempting to center it in its superview.

[self setInteralView: [[UIView alloc] init]];
[[self internalView] addConstraint: [NSLayoutConstraint constraintWithItem: [self internalView]
                                                                 attribute: NSLayoutAttributeCenterX
                                                                 relatedBy: NSLayoutRelationEqual
                                                                    toItem: self
                                                                 attribute: NSLayoutAttributeCenterX
                                                                multiplier: 1
                                                                  constant: 0]];

This breaks, and causes the following output:

2013-08-11 17:58:29.628 MyApp[32414:a0b] The view hierarchy is not prepared for the constraint: <NSLayoutConstraint:0xc1dcc80 UIView:0xc132a40.centerX == MyView:0xc1315a0.centerX>
    When added to a view, the constraint's items must be descendants of that view (or the view itself). This will crash if the constraint needs to be resolved before the view hierarchy is assembled. Break on -[UIView _viewHierarchyUnpreparedForConstraint:] to debug.
2013-08-11 17:58:29.630 MyApp[32414:a0b] View hierarchy unprepared for constraint.
    Constraint: <NSLayoutConstraint:0xc1dcc80 UIView:0xc132a40.centerX == MyView:0xc1315a0.centerX>
    Container hierarchy: 
<UIView: 0xc132a40; frame = (0 0; 0 0); clipsToBounds = YES; layer = <CALayer: 0xc132bc0>>
    View not found in container hierarchy: <MyView: 0xc1315a0; frame = (-128 -118; 576 804); layer = <CALayer: 0xc131710>>
    That view's superview: <UIView: 0xc131a70; frame = (0 0; 320 568); autoresize = W+H; layer = <CALayer: 0xc131b50>>

Answer 1

As @CharlesA points out in his answer the problem is that the view you are adding is not in the proper view hierarchy. His answer is a good one, but I'm going to throw in some detail for a particular use-case that caused this problem for me:

I had this happen when attempting to add constraints to a view whose view controller I had instantiated using instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier. To solve the problem, I used [childViewController didMoveToParentViewController:self]. This added the view into the view hierarchy that was referenced by my constraint.