Get to UIViewController from UIView?

Question

Is there a built-in way to get from a UIView to its UIViewController? I know you can get from UIViewController to its UIView via [self view] but I was wondering if there is a reverse reference?

Answer 1

To Phil's answer:

In line: id nextResponder = [self nextResponder]; if self(UIView) is not a subview of ViewController's view, if you know hierarchy of self(UIView) you can use also: id nextResponder = [[self superview] nextResponder];...

Answer 2

My solution would probably be considered kind of bogus but I had a similar situation as mayoneez (I wanted to switch views in response to a gesture in an EAGLView), and I got the EAGL's view controller this way:

EAGLViewController *vc = ((EAGLAppDelegate*)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate]).viewController;

Answer 3

Since this has been the accepted answer for a long time, I feel I need to rectify it with a better answer.

Some comments on the need:

• Your view should not need to access the view controller directly.
• The view should instead be independent of the view controller, and be able to work in different contexts.
• Should you need the view to interface in a way with the view controller, the recommended way, and what Apple does across Cocoa is to use the delegate pattern.

An example of how to implement it follows:

@protocol MyViewDelegate < NSObject >

- (void)viewActionHappened;

@end

@interface MyView : UIView

@property (nonatomic, assign) MyViewDelegate delegate;

@end

@interface MyViewController < MyViewDelegate >

@end

The view interfaces with its delegate (as UITableView does, for instance) and it doesn't care if its implemented in the view controller or in any other class that you end up using.

My original answer follows: I don't recommend this, neither the rest of the answers where direct access to the view controller is achieved

There is no built-in way to do it. While you can get around it by adding a IBOutlet on the UIView and connecting these in Interface Builder, this is not recommended. The view should not know about the view controller. Instead, you should do as @Phil M suggests and create a protocol to be used as the delegate.

Answer 4

I would suggest a more lightweight approach for traversing the complete responder chain without having to add a category on UIView:

@implementation MyUIViewSubclass

- (UIViewController *)viewController {
    UIResponder *responder = self;
    while (![responder isKindOfClass:[UIViewController class]]) {
        responder = [responder nextResponder];
        if (nil == responder) {
            break;
        }
    }
    return (UIViewController *)responder;
}

@end

Answer 5

I stumbled upon a situation where I have a small component I want to reuse, and added some code in a reusable view itself(it's really not much more than a button that opens a PopoverController).

While this works fine in the iPad (the UIPopoverController presents itself, therefor needs no reference to a UIViewController), getting the same code to work means suddenly referencing your presentViewController from your UIViewController. Kinda inconsistent right?

Like mentioned before, it's not the best approach to have logic in your UIView. But it felt really useless to wrap the few lines of code needed in a separate controller.

Either way, here's a swift solution, which adds a new property to any UIView:

extension UIView {

    var viewController: UIViewController? {

        var responder: UIResponder? = self

        while responder != nil {

            if let responder = responder as? UIViewController {
                return responder
            }
            responder = responder?.nextResponder()
        }
        return nil
    }
}

Answer 6

Updated version for swift 4 : Thanks for @Phil_M and @paul-slm

static func firstAvailableUIViewController(fromResponder responder: UIResponder) -> UIViewController? {
    func traverseResponderChainForUIViewController(responder: UIResponder) -> UIViewController? {
        if let nextResponder = responder.next {
            if let nextResp = nextResponder as? UIViewController {
                return nextResp
            } else {
                return traverseResponderChainForUIViewController(responder: nextResponder)
            }
        }
        return nil
    }

    return traverseResponderChainForUIViewController(responder: responder)
}