Remove all subviews?

Question

When my app gets back to its root view controller, in the viewDidAppear: method I need to remove all subviews.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Using Swift UIView extension:

extension UIView {
    func removeAllSubviews() {
        for subview in subviews {
            subview.removeFromSuperview()
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

In order to remove all subviews Syntax :

- (void)makeObjectsPerformSelector:(SEL)aSelector;

Usage :

[self.View.subviews makeObjectsPerformSelector:@selector(removeFromSuperview)];

This method is present in NSArray.h file and uses NSArray(NSExtendedArray) interface

Answer 3

This does only apply to OSX since in iOS a copy of the array is kept

When removing all the subviews, it is a good idea to start deleting at the end of the array and keep deleting until you reach the beginning. This can be accomplished with this two lines of code:

for (int i=mySuperView.subviews.count-1; i>=0; i--)
        [[mySuperView.subviews objectAtIndex:i] removeFromSuperview];

SWIFT 1.2

for var i=mySuperView.subviews.count-1; i>=0; i-- {
    mySuperView.subviews[i].removeFromSuperview();
}

or (less efficient, but more readable)

for subview in mySuperView.subviews.reverse() {
    subview.removeFromSuperview()
}

NOTE

You should NOT remove the subviews in normal order, since it may cause a crash if a UIView instance is deleted before the removeFromSuperview message has been sent to all objects of the array. (Obviously, deleting the last element would not cause a crash)

Therefore, the code

[[someUIView subviews] makeObjectsPerformSelector:@selector(removeFromSuperview)];

should NOT be used.

Quote from Apple documentation about makeObjectsPerformSelector:

Sends to each object in the array the message identified by a given selector, starting with the first object and continuing through the array to the last object.

(which would be the wrong direction for this purpose)

Answer 4

view.subviews.forEach { $0.removeFromSuperview() }

Answer 5

If you're using Swift, it's as simple as:

subviews.map { $0.removeFromSuperview }

It's similar in philosophy to the makeObjectsPerformSelector approach, however with a little more type safety.

Answer 6

If you want to remove all the subviews on your UIView (here yourView), then write this code at your button click:

[[yourView subviews] makeObjectsPerformSelector: @selector(removeFromSuperview)];