How to use pull to refresh in Swift?

Question

Pull to refresh is built in iOS. You could do this in swift like

let refreshControl = UIRefreshControl()

override func viewDidLoad() {
   super.viewDidLoad()

   refreshControl.attributedTitle = NSAttributedString(string: "Pull to refresh")
   refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(self.refresh(_:)), for: .valueChanged)
   tableView.addSubview(refreshControl) // not required when using UITableViewController
}

@objc func refresh(_ sender: AnyObject) {
   // Code to refresh table view  
}

At some point you could end refreshing.

refreshControl.endRefreshing()

A solution with storyboard and Swift:

1. Open your .storyboard file, select a TableViewController in your storyboard and "Enable" the Table View Controller: Refreshing feature in the Utilities.

   

2. Open the associated UITableViewController class and add the following Swift 5 line into the viewDidLoad method.

   self.refreshControl?.addTarget(self, action: #selector(refresh), for: UIControl.Event.valueChanged)
   

3. Add the following method above the viewDidLoad method

   func refresh(sender:AnyObject)
   {
       // Updating your data here...
   
       self.tableView.reloadData()
       self.refreshControl?.endRefreshing()
   }
   

I would like to mention a PRETTY COOL feature that has been included since iOS 10, which is:

For now, UIRefreshControl is directly supported in each of UICollectionView, UITableView and UIScrollView!

Each one of these views have refreshControl instance property, which means that there is no longer a need to add it as a subview in your scroll view, all you have to do is:

@IBOutlet weak var collectionView: UICollectionView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    let refreshControl = UIRefreshControl()
    refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(doSomething), for: .valueChanged)

    // this is the replacement of implementing: "collectionView.addSubview(refreshControl)"
    collectionView.refreshControl = refreshControl
}

func doSomething(refreshControl: UIRefreshControl) {
    print("Hello World!")

    // somewhere in your code you might need to call:
    refreshControl.endRefreshing()
}

Personally, I find it more natural to treat it as a property for scroll view more than add it as a subview, especially because the only appropriate view to be as a superview for a UIRefreshControl is a scrollview, i.e the functionality of using UIRefreshControl is only useful when working with a scroll view; That's why this approach should be more obvious to setup the refresh control view.

However, you still have the option of using the addSubview based on the iOS version:

if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
  collectionView.refreshControl = refreshControl
} else {
  collectionView.addSubview(refreshControl)
}

Swift 4

var refreshControl: UIRefreshControl!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    refreshControl = UIRefreshControl()
    refreshControl.attributedTitle = NSAttributedString(string: "Pull to refresh")
    refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(refresh), for: .valueChanged)
    tableView.addSubview(refreshControl) 
}

@objc func refresh(_ sender: Any) {
    //  your code to reload tableView
}

And you could stop refreshing with:

refreshControl.endRefreshing()

Swift 5

private var pullControl = UIRefreshControl()

pullControl.attributedTitle = NSAttributedString(string: "Pull to refresh")
        pullControl.addTarget(self, action: #selector(refreshListData(_:)), for: .valueChanged)
        if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
            tableView.refreshControl = pullControl
        } else {
            tableView.addSubview(pullControl)
        }
// Actions
@objc private func refreshListData(_ sender: Any) {
        self.pullControl.endRefreshing() // You can stop after API Call
        // Call API
    }

In Swift use this,

If you wants to have pull to refresh in WebView,

So try this code:

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    addPullToRefreshToWebView()
}

func addPullToRefreshToWebView(){
    var refreshController:UIRefreshControl = UIRefreshControl()

    refreshController.bounds = CGRectMake(0, 50, refreshController.bounds.size.width, refreshController.bounds.size.height) // Change position of refresh view
    refreshController.addTarget(self, action: Selector("refreshWebView:"), forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.ValueChanged)
    refreshController.attributedTitle = NSAttributedString(string: "Pull down to refresh...")
    YourWebView.scrollView.addSubview(refreshController)

}

func refreshWebView(refresh:UIRefreshControl){
    YourWebView.reload()
    refresh.endRefreshing()
}

Anhil's answer helped me a lot.

However, after experimenting further I noticed that the solution suggested sometimes causes a not-so-pretty UI glitch.

Instead, going for this approach* did the trick for me.

*Swift 2.1

//Create an instance of a UITableViewController. This will host your UITableView.
private let tableViewController = UITableViewController()

//Add tableViewController as a childViewController and set its tableView property to your UITableView.
self.addChildViewController(self.tableViewController)
self.tableViewController.tableView = self.tableView
self.refreshControl.addTarget(self, action: "refreshData:", forControlEvents: .ValueChanged)
self.tableViewController.refreshControl = self.refreshControl