Is it usually a bad sign that I am relying on self.parentViewController and/or self.presentingViewController in my design

Question

I have a SubSelectVC that handles sub-selection choice that is presented modally from a SearchVC. The SubSelectVC has a -(void)didSelectRowAtIndexPath that performs these options, roughly:

if ([[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] intValue] < 5) {
    ((SearchVC *)self.parentViewController.filters.filterValue = @"Some value";
}
else {
    ((SearchVC *)self.presentingViewController.filters.filterValue = @"Some value";
}

This seems like it screams of bad design but, I mean, the option to do it this way is there and it's so easy! What's wrong with this, and how would I make it right? (Should I use delegation?)

Answer 1

Yes, I think a better encapsulated version of this would be to define a delegate protocol in the header file for SubSelectVC, and a delegate property on SubSelectVC.

That way your view controller is reusable for any task that requires modal selection from a list.

EDIT: added example header:

SubSelectVC.h:

@protocol SubSelectVCDelegate

- (void)itemSelected:(NSString *)itemName;

@end

@interface SubSelectVC : UIViewController

@property (assign) id <SubSelectVCDelegate> delegate;

// etc...

@end