Recipe

A table in iOS requires both a UITableView to present the data and a UITableViewSource to supply to the data.

To create and populate a table:

• First create a UITableView instance and add it to a view (see the HomeScreen.cs ViewDidLoad method in the sample):

table = new UITableView(View.Bounds);
Add (table);

• Create a subclass of UITableViewSource that accepts an array of strings. Override the RowsInSection and GetCell methods as shown (in the TableSource.cs sample file):

public class TableSource : UITableViewSource {
    protected string[] tableItems;
    protected string cellIdentifier = "TableCell";
    public TableSource (string[] items)
    {
        tableItems = items;
    }
    public override int RowsInSection (UITableView tableview, int section)
    {
        return tableItems.Length;
    }
    public override UITableViewCell GetCell (UITableView tableView, MonoTouch.Foundation.NSIndexPath indexPath)
    {
        // request a recycled cell to save memory
        UITableViewCell cell = tableView.DequeueReusableCell (cellIdentifier);
        // if there are no cells to reuse, create a new one
        if (cell == null)
            cell = new UITableViewCell (UITableViewCellStyle.Default, cellIdentifier);
        cell.TextLabel.Text = tableItems[indexPath.Row];
        return cell;
    }
}

• Create an array of strings:

string[] tableItems = new string[] {"Vegetables","Fruits","Flower Buds","Legumes","Bulbs","Tubers"};

• Instantiate the UITableViewSource with the array, and set the Source property on the table.

table.Source = new TableSource(tableItems);

• The table will be displayed.

Additional Information

The steps above only display a table, it does not accept user input. To show an alert when the user touches a row, add the following method to the UITableViewSource subclass:

public override void RowSelected (UITableView tableView, NSIndexPath indexPath)
{   
    new UIAlertView("Row Selected", tableItems[indexPath.Row], null, "OK", null).Show();
    tableView.DeselectRow (indexPath, true); // iOS convention is to remove the highlight
}