Access Container View Controller from Parent iOS

Question

Yes, you can use the segue to get access the child view controller (and its view and subviews). Give the segue an identifier (such as alertview_embed), using the Attributes inspector in Storyboard. Then have the parent view controller (the one housing the container view) implement a method like this:

- (void) prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender
{
   NSString * segueName = segue.identifier;
   if ([segueName isEqualToString: @"alertview_embed"]) {
       AlertViewController * childViewController = (AlertViewController *) [segue destinationViewController];
       AlertView * alertView = childViewController.view;
       // do something with the AlertView's subviews here...
   }
}

You can do that simply with self.childViewControllers.lastObject (assuming you only have one child, otherwise use objectAtIndex:).

for Swift Programming

you can write like this

var containerViewController: ExampleViewController?
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
    // you can set this name in 'segue.embed' in storyboard
    if segue.identifier == "checkinPopupIdentifierInStoryBoard" {
        let connectContainerViewController = segue.destinationViewController as ExampleViewController
        containerViewController = connectContainerViewController
    }
}

The prepareForSegue approach works, but it relies on the segue identifier magic string. Maybe there's a better way.

If you know the class of the VC you're after, you can do this very neatly with a computed property:

var camperVan: CamperVanViewController? {
  return childViewControllers.flatMap({ $0 as? CamperVanViewController }).first
  // This works because `flatMap` removes nils
}

This relies on childViewControllers. While I agree it could be fragile to rely on the first one, naming the class you seek makes this seem quite solid.

An updated answer for Swift 3, using a computed property:

var jobSummaryViewController: JobSummaryViewController {
    get {
        let ctrl = childViewControllers.first(where: { $0 is JobSummaryViewController })
        return ctrl as! JobSummaryViewController
    }
}

This only iterates the list of children until it reaches the first match.

self.childViewControllers is more relevant when you need control from the parent. For instance, if the child controller is a table view and you want to reload it forcefully or change a property via a button tap or any other event on Parent View Controller, you can do it by accessing ChildViewController's instance and not via prepareForSegue. Both have their applications in different ways.

There is another way using Swift's switch statement on the type of the view controller :

override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?)
{
  switch segue.destination
  {
    case let aViewController as AViewController:
      self.aViewController = aViewController
    case let bViewController as BViewController:
      self.bViewController = bViewController
    default:
      return
  }
}