Why isn't UITableViewCell's Separator View listed?

Question

I want to remove certain UITableViewCell separators (not all of them).

I see them in the UI, but don't understand why they don't get listed when I print out the subview hierarchy?

for view in cell.subviews {
    DDLogDebug(String(describing: type(of: view)))
}

This seems to happen upon initial view. If I scroll the UITableView cells far out of view and then back again, the UITableViewCell's separator magically appears in the subview log printout. What's going on here?

note: I've only tested on the simulator as I don't own an iPhone X currently.

Answer 1

Working with UITableViewCell's outside of the cell doesn't seem as reliable as simply subclassing the cell and taking control from within it.

Hence my solution below:

class myCell: UITableViewCell {

    var withSeparator: Bool = true

    func layoutSubviews() {
        super.layoutSubviews()

        if !withSeparator {
            self.removeBottomSeparator()
        }

    }
...



extension UITableViewCell {
    func removeBottomSeparator() {
        // Remove it if it's found.
        for view in self.subviews where String(describing: type(of: view)).hasSuffix("SeparatorView") {
            view.removeFromSuperview()
        }

    }
}

Using this method allows me to find the SeparatorView every time and be able to remove it. 👍