ios - Why is a UITableViewCell textLabel property optional? -

a uitableviewcell's detailtextlabel should optional, documented, why textlabel property optional?

short answer: save resources. textlabel property optional allow uilabel lazily initialized. in other words, property stays nil unless attempt access it.

you can verify in debugger examining instance of uitableviewcell:

let cell = dequeuereusablecellwithidentifier(mycell.cellidentifier, forindexpath: indexpath) as! mycell  // check cell.textlabel here in debugger. should nil.  cell.textlabel.text = "test"   // creates textlabel via lazy initialization