TableView: Implementing automatic row height

 First, you have to use auto layout and elements that have an intrinsic content size. For example, that’s the case for a label. So let’s drag and drop a label inside a table view cell and set constraints for top, bottom, left and right margin to the container:

 

As you can see, there is no height constraint for the label. We don’t want this because the height is dynamic and the label calculates the height on itself – also called intrinsic content size. In order for the label to do that, it has to use as many lines as necessary. For that, we set the number of lines to 0 and use “word wrap” as line break mode:


Now there are just two things left: We have to set the row height to automatic and also specify an estimated row height. For that, we can set these properties in the corresponding view controller:

override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 44 }

override func viewDidLoad() {      super.viewDidLoad()      tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension      tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 44         }

Does it work?

Now we can configure the whole view controller. It could look like this:

import UIKit class TableViewController: UITableViewController { private var exampleContent = ["This is a short text.", "This is another text, and it is a little bit longer.", "Wow, this text is really very very long! I hope it can be read completely! Luckily, we are using automatic row height!"] override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() tableView.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(20.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0) tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 44 tableView.reloadData() } // MARK: - Table view data source override func numberOfSections(in tableView: UITableView) -> Int { return 1 } override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int { return exampleContent.count } override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell { let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "tableViewCellIdentifier", for: indexPath) as! TableViewCell let content = exampleContent[indexPath.row] cell.customLabel.text = content return cell } }

import UIKit class TableViewController: UITableViewController {          private var exampleContent = ["This is a short text.", "This is another text, and it is a little bit longer.", "Wow, this text is really very very long! I hope it can be read completely! Luckily, we are using automatic row height!"]          override func viewDidLoad() {         super.viewDidLoad()                  tableView.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(20.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0)         tableView.rowHeight = UITableViewAutomaticDimension         tableView.estimatedRowHeight = 44                  tableView.reloadData()              }     // MARK: - Table view data source     override func numberOfSections(in tableView: UITableView) -> Int {         return 1     }     override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, numberOfRowsInSection section: Int) -> Int {         return exampleContent.count     }          override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, cellForRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {         let cell = tableView.dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier: "tableViewCellIdentifier", for: indexPath) as! TableViewCell                  let content = exampleContent[indexPath.row]                  cell.customLabel.text = content         return cell     } }

You can update height of tableview :

 self.heightTableView.constant = self.tableView.contentSize.height

Don’t forget to also create a custom table view cell and set the outlet for the label!
And indeed, we get the desired result: