Is it possible to refresh a single UITableViewCell in a UITableView?

Question

Once you have the indexPath of your cell, you can do something like:

[self.tableView beginUpdates];
[self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:indexPathOfYourCell, nil] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
[self.tableView endUpdates]; 

In Xcode 4.6 and higher:

[self.tableView beginUpdates];
[self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:@[indexPathOfYourCell] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
[self.tableView endUpdates]; 

You can set whatever your like as animation effect, of course.

I tried just calling -[UITableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:], but that didn't work. But, the following works for me for example. I alloc and release the NSArray for tight memory management.

- (void)reloadRow0Section0 {
    NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:0 inSection:0];
    NSArray *indexPaths = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:indexPath, nil];
    [self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:indexPaths withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
    [indexPaths release];
}

Swift:

func updateCell(path:Int){
    let indexPath = NSIndexPath(forRow: path, inSection: 1)

    tableView.beginUpdates()
    tableView.reloadRowsAtIndexPaths([indexPath], withRowAnimation: UITableViewRowAnimation.Automatic) //try other animations
    tableView.endUpdates()
}

reloadRowsAtIndexPaths: is fine, but still will force UITableViewDelegate methods to fire.

The simplest approach I can imagine is:

UITableViewCell* cell = [self.tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
[self configureCell:cell forIndexPath:indexPath];

It's important to invoke your configureCell: implementation on main thread, as it wont work on non-UI thread (the same story with reloadData/reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:). Sometimes it might be helpful to add:

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^
{
    [self configureCell:cell forIndexPath:indexPath];
});

It's also worth to avoid work that would be done outside of the currently visible view:

BOOL cellIsVisible = [[self.tableView indexPathsForVisibleRows] indexOfObject:indexPath] != NSNotFound;
if (cellIsVisible)
{
    ....
}

If you are using custom TableViewCells, the generic

[self.tableView reloadData];    

does not effectively answer this question unless you leave the current view and come back. Neither does the first answer.

To successfully reload your first table view cell without switching views, use the following code:

//For iOS 5 and later
- (void)reloadTopCell {
    NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:0 inSection:0];
    NSArray *indexPaths = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:indexPath, nil];
    [self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:indexPaths withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
}

Insert the following refresh method which calls to the above method so you can custom reload only the top cell (or the entire table view if you wish):

- (void)refresh:(UIRefreshControl *)refreshControl {
    //call to the method which will perform the function
    [self reloadTopCell];

    //finish refreshing 
    [refreshControl endRefreshing];
}

Now that you have that sorted, inside of your viewDidLoad add the following:

//refresh table view
UIRefreshControl *refreshControl = [[UIRefreshControl alloc] init];

[refreshControl addTarget:self action:@selector(refresh:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];

[self.tableView addSubview:refreshControl];

You now have a custom refresh table feature that will reload the top cell. To reload the entire table, add the

[self.tableView reloadData]; to your new refresh method.

If you wish to reload the data every time you switch views, implement the method:

//ensure that it reloads the table view data when switching to this view
- (void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [self.tableView reloadData];
}

Swift 3 :

tableView.beginUpdates()
tableView.reloadRows(at: [indexPath], with: .automatic)
tableView.endUpdates()