Access Container View Controller from Parent iOS

for Swift Programming

you can write like this

var containerViewController: ExampleViewController?
override func prepareForSegue(segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: AnyObject?) {
    // you can set this name in 'segue.embed' in storyboard
    if segue.identifier == "checkinPopupIdentifierInStoryBoard" {
        let connectContainerViewController = segue.destinationViewController as ExampleViewController
        containerViewController = connectContainerViewController
    }
}

Yes, you can use the segue to get access the child view controller (and its view and subviews). Give the segue an identifier (such as alertview_embed), using the Attributes inspector in Storyboard. Then have the parent view controller (the one housing the container view) implement a method like this:

- (void) prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender
{
   NSString * segueName = segue.identifier;
   if ([segueName isEqualToString: @"alertview_embed"]) {
       AlertViewController * childViewController = (AlertViewController *) [segue destinationViewController];
       AlertView * alertView = childViewController.view;
       // do something with the AlertView's subviews here...
   }
}

The prepareForSegue approach works, but it relies on the segue identifier magic string. Maybe there's a better way.

If you know the class of the VC you're after, you can do this very neatly with a computed property:

var camperVan: CamperVanViewController? {
  return childViewControllers.flatMap({ $0 as? CamperVanViewController }).first
  // This works because `flatMap` removes nils
}

This relies on childViewControllers. While I agree it could be fragile to rely on the first one, naming the class you seek makes this seem quite solid.

You can do that simply with self.childViewControllers.lastObject (assuming you only have one child, otherwise use objectAtIndex:).