Figuring out how to set the default view controller on a storyboard is surprisingly unintuitive, especially as someone new to iOS development. It seemed logical to me that it would be some sort of setting on the storyboard itself. However, it’s actually the exact opposite – it’s a setting on the view controller.

This is somewhat bizzare as it means setting a property on one view controller can affect other view controllers, but nevertheless, it’s quite simple. Here’s what you need to do:

• Open your storyboard
• Click on the view controller corresponding to the view that you want to be the default view
• Open the Attributes Inspector
• Check the Is Initial View Controller check box in the View Controller section

Voila! Your view controller is now the default view controller for this storyboard.

Step 1: Add a UISearchBar to your UITableView and create an outlet for it.

Step 2: Add properties for the array of all the table data, and the array of filtered table data.

@property (strong, nonatomic) NSMutableArray* allTableData;
@property (strong, nonatomic) NSMutableArray* filteredTableData;

Step 3: Assign your search bar’s delegate to your controller class.

-(void)viewDidLoad
{
    // ...Do initialization stuff here...

    searchBar.delegate = (id)self;
}

Step 4: Implement the searchBar:textDidChange: method from the UISearchBarDelegate protocol. This will let you filter your list as you type. If you want to filter when the search button is clicked, use the searchBarSearchButtonClicked: method instead.

In this example, we are searching through a list of foods with names and descriptions to see if the match the search text. If they do, we add them to our NSMutableArray containing our filtered foods. We also set a flag that indicates whether or not we are currently filtering the list.

-(void)searchBar:(UISearchBar*)searchBar textDidChange:(NSString*)text
{
    if(text.length == 0)
    {
        isFiltered = FALSE;
    }
    else
    {
        isFiltered = true;
        filteredTableData = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

        for (Food* food in allTableData)
        {
            NSRange nameRange = [food.name rangeOfString:text options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
            NSRange descriptionRange = [food.description rangeOfString:text options:NSCaseInsensitiveSearch];
            if(nameRange.location != NSNotFound || descriptionRange.location != NSNotFound)
            {
                [filteredTableData addObject:food];
            }
        }
    }

    [self.tableView reloadData];
}

Step 5: Modify our other UITableViewController methods to make them aware of the isFiltering flag, and to use the correct list depending on whether or not we are filtering.

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    int rowCount;
    if(self.isFiltered)
        rowCount = filteredTableData.count;
    else
        rowCount = allTableData.count;

    return rowCount;
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";

    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    if (cell == nil)
        cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier];

    Food* food;
    if(isFiltered)
        food = [filteredTableData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    else
        food = [allTableData objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];

    // ... Set up the cell here...;

    return cell;
}

Voila! You now have a UITableView that can be filtered using a UISearchBar.

Download the UITableView Filtering Demo Project (updated July 8, 2012 to show row selection and disclosure indicator handling).