Given a view how do I get its viewController

Question

I have a pointer to a UIView   How do I access its UIViewController    self superview  is another UIView  but not the UIViewController  right

User · Answer

More type safe code for Swift 3 0  extension UIResponder       func owningViewController   - gt  UIViewController            var nextResponser   self         while let next   nextResponser next               nextResponser   next             if let vc   nextResponser as  UIViewController                   return vc                                 return nil

User · Answer

The fast and generic way in Swift 3   extension UIResponder       func parentController lt T  UIViewController gt  of type  T Type  - gt  T            guard let next   self next else               return nil                   return  next as  T     next parentController of  T self             Use  class MyView  UIView               let parentController   self parentController of  MyViewController self

User · Answer

From the UIResponder documentation for nextResponder      The UIResponder class does not store or set the next responder automatically  instead returning nil by default  Subclasses must override this method to set the next responder  UIView implements this method by returning the UIViewController object that manages it  if it has one  or its superview  if it doesn   t   UIViewController implements the method by returning its view   s superview  UIWindow returns the application object  and UIApplication returns nil    So  if you recurse a view   s nextResponder until it is of type UIViewController  then you have any view   s parent viewController   Note that it still may not have a parent view controller  But only if the view has not part of a viewController   s view   s view hierarchy   Swift 3 and Swift 4 1 extension    extension UIView       var parentViewController  UIViewController            var parentResponder  UIResponder    self         while parentResponder    nil               parentResponder   parentResponder  next             if let viewController   parentResponder as  UIViewController                   return viewController                                 return nil           Swift 2 extension   extension UIView       var parentViewController  UIViewController            var parentResponder  UIResponder    self         while parentResponder    nil               parentResponder   parentResponder  nextResponder               if let viewController   parentResponder as  UIViewController                   return viewController                                 return nil           Objective-C category    interface UIView  mxcl  -  UIViewController   parentViewController   end   implementation UIView  mxcl  -  UIViewController   parentViewController       UIResponder  responder   self      while   responder isKindOfClass  UIView class            responder    responder nextResponder       return  UIViewController   responder     end   This macro avoids category pollution    define UIViewParentController   view           UIResponder    responder     view        while     responder isKindOfClass  UIView class                responder      responder nextResponder          UIViewController     responder

User · Answer

If you are not familiar with the code and you want to find ViewController coresponding to given view  then you can try    Run app in debug Navigate to screen Start View inspector Grab the View you want to find  or a child view even better  From the right pane get the address  e g  0x7fe523bd3000  In debug console start writing commands         po  UIView   0x7fe523bd3000     po   UIView   0x7fe523bd3000 nextResponder      po    UIView   0x7fe523bd3000 nextResponder  nextResponder      po     UIView   0x7fe523bd3000 nextResponder  nextResponder  nextResponder            In most cases you will get UIView  but from time to time there will be UIViewController based class

User · Answer

A little bit late  but here s an extension that enable you to find a responder of any type  including ViewController   extension NSObject  func findNext type  AnyClass  - gt  Any      var resp   self as  UIResponder      while  resp isKind of  type self   amp  amp  resp next    nil               resp   resp next             return resp

User · Answer

andrey answer in one line  tested in Swift 4 1    extension UIResponder       public var parentViewController  UIViewController            return next as  UIViewController    next  parentViewController           usage    let vc  UIViewController   view parentViewController

User · Answer

I think you can propagate the tap to the view controller and let it handle it  This is more acceptable approach  As for accessing a view controller from its view  you should maintain a reference to a view controller  since there is no another way  See this thread  it might help  Accessing view controller from a view

User · Answer

Yes  the superview is the view that contains your view  Your view shouldn t know which exactly is its view controller  because that would break MVC principles   The controller  on the other hand  knows which view it s responsible for  self view   myView   and usually  this view delegates methods events for handling to the controller   Typically  instead of a pointer to your view  you should have a pointer to your controller  which in turn can either execute some controlling logic  or pass something to its view

User · Answer

To get reference to UIViewController having UIView  you could make extension of UIResponder  which is super class for UIView and UIViewController   which allows to go up through the responder chain and thus reaching UIViewController  otherwise returning nil    extension UIResponder       func getParentViewController   - gt  UIViewController            if self nextResponder   is UIViewController               return self nextResponder   as  UIViewController           else               if self nextResponder      nil                   return  self nextResponder     getParentViewController                             else  return nil                       Swift 3 extension UIResponder       func getParentViewController   - gt  UIViewController            if self next is UIViewController               return self next as  UIViewController           else               if self next    nil                   return  self next   getParentViewController                             else  return nil                     let vc   UIViewController   let view   UIView   vc view addSubview view  view getParentViewController     provide reference to vc

User · Answer

For debug purposes only  you can call  viewDelegate on views to get their view controllers  This is private API  so not safe for App Store  but for debugging it is useful   Other useful methods     viewControllerForAncestor - get the first controller that manages a view in the superview chain   thanks n00neimp0rtant   rootAncestorViewController - get the ancestor controller whose view hierarchy is set in the window currently

User · Answer

If you set a breakpoint  you can paste this into the debugger to print the view hierarchy   po   UIWindow keyWindow  recursiveDescription    You should be able to find your view s parent somewhere in that mess

User · Answer

Alas  this is impossible unless you subclass the view and provide it with an instance property or alike which stores the view controller reference inside it once the view is added to the scene     In most cases - it is very easy to work around the original problem of this post as most view controllers are well-known entities to the programmer who was responsible for adding any subviews to the ViewController s View  -  Which is why I guess that Apple never bothered to add that property

[ios] Given a view, how do I get its viewController?

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