UIBarButtonItem with UIButton as CustomView - from UIButton, how to access the UIBarButtonItem its in?

Question

I have a UIBarButtonItem with UIButton as custom view.

The UIButton has a addTarget:action: on it. In the action

Answer 1

First of all, why do you need to access the UIBarButtonItem?

Then, to create a UIBarButtonItem with a custom view I suggest you to create a category extension like the following (in this case the custom view is a UIButton).

//UIBarButtonItem+Extension.h    
+ (UIBarButtonItem*)barItemWithImage:(UIImage*)image title:(NSString*)title target:(id)target action:(SEL)action;

//UIBarButtonItem+Extension.m    
+ (UIBarButtonItem*)barItemWithImage:(UIImage*)image title:(NSString*)title target:(id)target action:(SEL)action
{
    UIButton *button = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    button.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, image.size.width, image.size.height);
    button.titleLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;

    [button setBackgroundImage:image forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    [button setTitle:title forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    [button addTarget:target action:action forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];

    UIBarButtonItem* barButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithCustomView:button];

    return [barButtonItem autorelease];    
}

and the use it like this (first import UIBarButtonItem+Extension.h):

UIBarButtonItem* backBarButtonItem = [UIBarButtonItem barItemWithImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"YoutImageName"] title:@"YourTitle" target:self action:@selector(doSomething:)];

where the selector it's a method that is implemented inside the class (the target) that uses that bar button item.

Now inside the doSomething: selector you could the following:

- (void)doSomething:(id)sender

    UIButton* senderButton = (UIButton*)sender;    
    [popover presentPopoverFromRect:senderButton.bounds inView:senderButton...];
}

A category in this case it's useful to not duplicate code. Hope it helps.

P.S. I'm not using ARC but same considerations can be also applied.

Edit:

An easy solution to access the bar button item could be the following:

1. Subclass a UIButton
2. Create within it a property of type UIBarButtonItem (a weak one to avoid retaincycle)
3. Inject the bar button item in the UIButton when you create it.

Maybe it could work, but I will prefer the first one.