Changing the background color of a UILabel within a UITableViewCell

Question

A UITableViewCell comes "pre-built" with a UILabel as its one and only subview after you've init'ed it. I'd really like to change the background color of said label, but no matter what I do the color does not change. The code in question:

UILabel* label = (UILabel*)[cell.contentView.subviews objectAtIndex:0];
label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor];
label.opaque = YES;

Any hints as to why this doesn't work? Thanks!

Answer 1

Your code snippet works fine for me, but it must be done after the cell has been added to the table and shown, I believe. If called from the initWithFrame:reuseIdentifier:, you'll get an exception, as the label subview has not yet been created.

Probably the best solution is to add your own UILabel, configured to your standards, rather than relying on this (very rickety) path to the built-in one.

Answer 2

Add your own label to the contentView when you are allocating the cell, rather than relying on the extraction of the built in one. Then you can control all values:

UILabel* label = [[[UILabel alloc] init] autorelease];
label.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor];
label.opaque = YES;
[cell.contentView addSubview:label];