This is extremely frustrating: I'm trying to display unfiltered results in a UISearchDisplayController even if the search string is empty.
Adding debug code to numberOfSectionsInTableView: and numberOfRowsInSection: shows that when my search string is empty, non-zero integers are being returned, but cellForRowAtIndexPath: is never called! The tableview appears to be hidden.
I tried setting tableview.hidden=NO; in searchDisplayController:(UISearchDisplayController *)controller didHideSearchResultsTableView:(UITableView *)tableView to no avail.
This can't be that hard to pull off, I'd imagine this is a very common thing to do!
Well the solution to this is to not use the UISearchDisplayController. It simply doesn't offer the flexibility you need to do something like this. Build your own custom search interface with a UISegmentedControl, UISearchBar and UITableView for maximum flexibility.