Returns a reusable table-view cell object after locating it by its identifier.

Apple Developer Documentation

Declaration

func dequeueReusableCell(withIdentifier identifier: [String](<https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/string>)) -> [UITableViewCell](<https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitableviewcell>)?

Parameters

**identifier**A string identifying the cell object to be reused. This parameter must not be nil.

Return Value

UITableViewCell object with the associated identifier or nil if no such object exists in the reusable-cell queue.

Discussion

For performance reasons, a table view’s data source should generally reuse UITableViewCell objects when it assigns cells to rows in its tableView(_:cellForRowAt:) method. A table view maintains a queue or list of UITableViewCell objects that the data source has marked for reuse.

Call this method from your data source object when asked to provide a new cell for the table view. This method dequeues an existing cell if one is available or creates a new one using the class or nib file you previously registered.

If no cell is available for reuse and you did not register a class or nib file, this method returns nil.

If you registered a class for the specified identifier and a new cell must be created, this method initializes the cell by calling its init(style:reuseIdentifier:) method. For nib-based cells, this method loads the cell object from the provided nib file. If an existing cell was available for reuse, this method calls the cell’s prepareForReuse() method instead.