How would I create a UIAlertView in Swift?

From the UIAlertView class:

// UIAlertView is deprecated. Use UIAlertController with a preferredStyle of UIAlertControllerStyleAlert instead

On iOS 8, you can do this:

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Click", style: UIAlertActionStyle.Default, handler: nil))
self.presentViewController(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

Now UIAlertController is a single class for creating and interacting with what we knew as UIAlertViews and UIActionSheets on iOS 8.

Edit: To handle actions:

alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .Default, handler: { action in
    switch action.style{
    case .Default:
        print("default")
        
    case .Cancel:
        print("cancel")
        
    case .Destructive:
        print("destructive")
    }
}}))

Edit for Swift 3:

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Click", style: UIAlertActionStyle.default, handler: nil))
self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

Edit for Swift 4.x:

let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Alert", message: "Message", preferredStyle: .alert)
alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: .default, handler: { action in
    switch action.style{
        case .default:
        print("default")
        
        case .cancel:
        print("cancel")
        
        case .destructive:
        print("destructive")
        
    }
}))
self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

One Button

One Button Screenshot

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    @IBAction func showAlertButtonTapped(_ sender: UIButton) {

        // create the alert
        let alert = UIAlertController(title: "My Title", message: "This is my message.", preferredStyle: UIAlertController.Style.alert)

        // add an action (button)
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "OK", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default, handler: nil))

        // show the alert
        self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Two Buttons

Two Button Alert Screenshot

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    @IBAction func showAlertButtonTapped(_ sender: UIButton) {

        // create the alert
        let alert = UIAlertController(title: "UIAlertController", message: "Would you like to continue learning how to use iOS alerts?", preferredStyle: UIAlertController.Style.alert)

        // add the actions (buttons)
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Continue", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default, handler: nil))
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertAction.Style.cancel, handler: nil))

        // show the alert
        self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Three Buttons

enter image description here

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    @IBAction func showAlertButtonTapped(_ sender: UIButton) {

        // create the alert
        let alert = UIAlertController(title: "Notice", message: "Lauching this missile will destroy the entire universe. Is this what you intended to do?", preferredStyle: UIAlertController.Style.alert)

        // add the actions (buttons)
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Remind Me Tomorrow", style: UIAlertAction.Style.default, handler: nil))
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Cancel", style: UIAlertAction.Style.cancel, handler: nil))
        alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Launch the Missile", style: UIAlertAction.Style.destructive, handler: nil))

        // show the alert
        self.present(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Handling Button Taps

The handler was nil in the above examples. You can replace nil with a closure to do something when the user taps a button. For example:

alert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Launch the Missile", style: UIAlertAction.Style.destructive, handler: { action in

    // do something like...
    self.launchMissile()

}))

Notes

  • Multiple buttons do not necessarily need to use different UIAlertAction.Style types. They could all be .default.
  • For more than three buttons consider using an Action Sheet. The setup is very similar. Here is an example.