UITableView reloadSections example in Objective C (iOS).

UITableView reloadSections

Reloads the specified sections using a given animation effect.

- (void)reloadSections:(NSIndexSet *)sections withRowAnimation:(UITableViewRowAnimation)animation

Parameters of [UITableView reloadSections]
sections
An index set identifying the sections to reload.
animation
A constant that indicates how the reloading is to be animated, for example, fade out or slide out from the bottom. See “Table Cell Insertion and Deletion Animation” for descriptions of these constants.
The animation constant affects the direction in which both the old and the new section rows slide. For example, if the animation constant is UITableViewRowAnimationRight, the old rows slide out to the right and the new cells slide in from the right.

Discussion of [UITableView reloadSections]
Calling this method causes the table view to ask its data source for new cells for the specified sections. The table view animates the insertion of new cells in as it animates the old cells out. Call this method if you want to alert the user that the values of the designated sections are changing. If, however, you just want to change values in cells of the specified sections without alerting the user, you can get those cells and directly set their new values.[UITableView reloadSections]

When this method is called in an animation block defined by the beginUpdates and endUpdates methods, it behaves similarly to deleteSections:withRowAnimation:. The indexes that UITableView passes to the method are specified in the state of the table view prior to any updates. This happens regardless of ordering of the insertion, deletion, and reloading method calls within the animation block.

UITableView reloadSections example.

NSRange range = NSMakeRange(0, 1);
NSIndexSet *section = [NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndexesInRange:range];                                    
[self.tableView reloadSections:section withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
This will reload the first section. I prefer to have a category on UITableView and just call this method:

[self.tableView reloadSection:0 withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
My category method looks like this:

@implementation UITableView (DUExtensions)

- (void) reloadSectionDU:(NSInteger)section withRowAnimation:(UITableViewRowAnimation)rowAnimation {
    NSRange range = NSMakeRange(section, 1);
    NSIndexSet *sectionToReload = [NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndexesInRange:range];                                    
    [self reloadSections:sectionToReload withRowAnimation:rowAnimation];
}

Example of [UITableView reloadSections].

// set the guests arrival status and use animation
[guestList beginUpdates];
if (!guest.didArrive) {
    [guest setDidArrive:YES];
    [guestList reloadSections:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:0] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationBottom];
} else {
    [guest setDidArrive:NO];
    [guestList reloadSections:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:1] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationTop];
}
[guestList endUpdates];
[guestList reloadData];

UITableView reloadSections example.

    for (Element *eleSection in self.gruppenKoepfe) {
        if ( eleSection.type.integerValue == qmObjectTypeFormularSpalte || eleSection.type.integerValue == qmObjectTypeFormularZeile ) {
            [self.tableView reloadSections:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:nCount] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        }
        nCount ++;
    }     

End of UITableView reloadSections example article.