iOS - How To Remove Previously Added Sublayers Of a UIView

Question

I have a custom view which is a subclass of UIView. I added some sublayers to the custom view but now I want remove them.

I tried doing this:

self.layer.sublayers = nil;

But this will remove everything including the initial sublayers of the view.

Is there any way to achieve this? Or do I have to reinitialise a new custom view every time?

Note: App runs in iOS 7 and above.

Thanks!

score 75 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 29 '17 at 23:33

75

Keep a reference to the sublayer added Remove the sublayer from the super layer when not needed.

The code would be like:

Obj C:

[thesublayer removeFromSuperlayer]

Swift:

thesublayer.removeFromSuperlayer()

//thesublayer is the name of the layer you want to remove

edited Oct 29 '17 at 23:33

Kegham K.

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answered Jun 02 '16 at 03:11

luckystars

1,704
12
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2

Why didn't I thought of this... -_- Thanks! – JLT Jun 02 '16 at 03:20

score 64 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 10 '17 at 18:30

Another way to remove specific layer from super layer is to assign unique string in layer.name property. Which you can compare later to identify and remove it out.

for layer in sublayers {
     if layer.name == "masklayer" {
          layer.removeFromSuperlayer()
     }
 }

Vanya · Answer 3 · 2020-09-23T08:12:30.303

20

keeping reference is not cool, in some cases you can use

resultImageView.layer.sublayers?.filter{ $0 is CAShapeLayer }.forEach{ $0.removeFromSuperlayer() }

or to be more generic by using CALayer, which removes everything

edited Sep 23 '20 at 08:12

answered Feb 17 '20 at 16:05

Vanya

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All other solutions crashed me - this one worked thank you! – Apneist Nov 24 '20 at 00:54

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 05 '18 at 03:35

19

I did it in Swift 3 using popLast().

self.layer.sublayers?.popLast()

edited Feb 05 '18 at 03:35

Pang

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answered Feb 05 '18 at 03:11

meow2x

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thanks, all the other solutions were crashing when trying to remove sublayer from a a UITextArea in Swift 4 – Carioni Oct 16 '18 at 19:52
1

Very nice. Thank you very much. – Thuan Nguyen Feb 22 '20 at 11:36

score 10 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 21 '19 at 13:33

first of all you should add a name to the sublayer with theLayer.name property

after that you can extend the view like this:

extension UIView {
    func removeLayer(layerName: String) {
            for item in self.layer.sublayers ?? [] where item.name == layerName {
                    item.removeFromSuperlayer()
            }
        }
}

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 20 '20 at 11:22

Here is my solution for removing AVPlayerLayer without keeping a reference to it:

- (void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidDisappear:animated];

    // Remove player layer when screen gone
    NSUInteger layerIndex = [self.view.layer.sublayers indexOfObjectPassingTest:^BOOL(__kindof CALayer * _Nonnull obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {
        return [obj isKindOfClass:[AVPlayerLayer class]];
    }];
    if (layerIndex != NSNotFound) {
        AVPlayerLayer *playerLayer = self.view.layer.sublayers[layerIndex];
        [playerLayer removeFromSuperlayer];
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 07 '21 at 01:23

0

view.layer.sublayers?.forEach { $0.removeFromSuperlayer() }

answered Jan 07 '21 at 01:23

Lindemann

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 15 '21 at 02:58

A blend of the safest answers:

First, set the name property on each added sublayer. In this case, adding a CAShapeLayer:

private let shapeName = "shape"
let shape = ...
shape.name = shapeName
self.layer.addSublayer(shape)

Later, remove only those named sublayers:

self.layer.sublayers?
    .filter { $0.name == self.shapeName }
    .forEach { $0.removeFromSuperlayer() }

iOS - How To Remove Previously Added Sublayers Of a UIView

8 Answers8