Monotouch set properties not keeping property values

Question

In my MonoDevelop project I have an iPhone app. I have two different views. Each view contains a UITable. For view 1 I have class 1 hooked to the UITable as Datasource 1. For View 2 I have a class 2 hooked up as Datasource 2. Both classes (i.e. Datasources) feed the tables with data. View 2 also has a custom cell and because of this loads asynchronous.

I get the data from 2 XML files using linq to XML. Everything works and the data loads great. What I need to do know is to load data in Datasource 2 based on the selection made in View 1. To do this I need to pass an ID from view 1 to Class(Datasource) 2. Problem.

I have tried just about everything I know but I just can't get it right.

The correct solution according to me:

I have created another class called SelectedRound with two properties. Code:

using System;

namespace xxxxx
{
    public class SelectedRound
    {
        public string RoundID { get; set; }
        public string Date { get; set; }
    }
}

When I set RoundID in class 1 then I can access it in class 1. Trying to access it in class 2 however, returns nothing or null. Why would this happen? Could it be because Class(Datasource) 2 is loading asynchronously? Should I instantiate the SelectedRound class in some global way? If so how? AppDelegate maybe? (I am struggling to do that as well).

It seems pointless to me that setting and getting a simple string variable is difficult.

Answer 1

This feels like it is all about how you are passing the SelectedRound instance from the first view to the second.

As a very quick and dirty solution you could just use a singleton or could just use a static class:

public static class SelectedRound
{
    public static string RoundID {get;set;}
    public static string Date {get;set;}
}

For a more sophisticated pattern, then try overriding the constructors of one or both of your two view controllers in order to pass them a shared instance of your non-static class.

The view controllers may feel foreign to you right now - but they are just c# classes - so feel free to extend them by writing overrides, new methods and properties.