A very common pattern on iOS is for one view controller to react to a user action (such as tapping on a button or table cell) by creating and presenting another view controller. In code, this looks something like this:

- (IBAction)nextScreenButtonTapped:(id)sender
{
    DestinationViewController *destinationController = [[DestinationViewController alloc] init];
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:YES];
}

In all but the simplest cases this code is not sufficient because we usually have to configure the new screen before we present it. The calling view controller (self in this context) has information that needs to be shown on the view that is to be presented by the new view controller. Let’s assume the destination view contains a text field whose text must be set. Since the text field can be accessed via a public property in DestinationViewController, many beginners extend the code in the most straightforward way: just set the text field’s text directly from the source view controller.

- (IBAction)nextScreenButtonTapped:(id)sender
{
    DestinationViewController *destinationController = [[DestinationViewController alloc] init];
    destinationController.nameTextField.text = self.myModel.name;
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:YES];
}

Don’t Misuse Views For Storing Data

This approach fails because at the time the line destinationController.nameTextField.text = ... is executed, the DestinationViewController’s view has not yet been loaded and therefore the text field (one of the controller’s view’s subviews) does not yet exist. nameTextField will be nil and the line of code above does nothing. Now, the easiest way to fix this is to make sure the view controller’s view gets loaded before the code is executed. You can do this by accessing the view controller’s view property, which automatically will attempt to load the view:

- (IBAction)nextScreenButtonTapped:(id)sender
{
    DestinationViewController *destinationController = [[DestinationViewController alloc] init];
    if (destinationController.view) {
        destinationController.nameTextField.text = self.myModel.name;
    }
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:YES];
}

Now this works, but you should not do it this way. There are at least three reasons why this piece of code is bad design:

1. To people who don’t know that accessing the view property implicitly loads the view, this code is very obscure. Why the need for the if (destinationController.view) { ... } statement? The could would require an explanatory comment to make its purpose clear. If you find yourself having to add comments to simple-looking code, it is often a sign of bad design. In my opinion, the vast majority of your code should be able to explain itself without any comments.

2. It breaks encapsulation. A view controller’s view and all its subviews should only be accessed by the view controller that owns these objects. It is that view controller’s job and sole responsibility to manage its view(s), and no other object should have to interfere in this relationship. Instead, the view controller should offer a clean public interface to allow outside objects to configure it.

3. You must not use views to store data. In this example, the nameTextField is the only object managed by the view controller that stores the string to be edited. This is an absolute no-go. It is not only bad design in the model-view-controller context but can also potentially lead to data loss. In iOS, view controllers are expected to destroy their views under memory pressure when those views are not currently visible. If this happens to a text field that is the sole storage for an edited model property, data has been lost.

The Solution

The solution for this problem is to declare another public property NSString *name in the DestinationViewController class and assign the data to this property first:

- (IBAction)nextScreenButtonTapped:(id)sender
{
    DestinationViewController *destinationController = [[DestinationViewController alloc] init];
    destinationController.name = self.myModel.name;
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:YES];
}

Then, in -[DestinationViewController viewDidLoad], we know the view (and with it our text field) has been loaded and we can assign the text to the text field:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.nameTextField.text = self.name;
}

The view controller must also take care to update its name property whenever the user edits the text in the text field. That way, the name property acts as storage for the user’s data and the view controller remains in a safe state when its view gets unloaded.

- (IBAction)nextScreenButtonTapped:(id)sender
{
    DestinationViewController *destinationController = [[DestinationViewController alloc]
        initWithName:self.myModel.name];
    [self.navigationController pushViewController:destinationController animated:YES];
}

// DestinationViewController.m
- (id)initWithName:(NSString *)theName
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:@"DestinationViewController" bundle:nil];
    if (self) {
        _name = [theName copy];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];
    self.nameTextField.text = _name;
}