How do I programmatically dismiss a view controller?

Because of this POS forum software your commented out code does not show. But in any case, if your second view controller was itself presented using presentViewController(), then you just need to call self.dismissViewController(). If you are trying to "go back", you certainly don't want to create and present a brand new view controller.

BTW the fact that you would have to know whether you were being presented modally (in which case you would call dismissViewController) or as a "push" in a navigation controller (in which case you would call popViewController) is a big part of the reason unwind segues were introduced, I think. If you use an unwind segue, your presented/pushed VC doesn't have to know or care. You would just call performSegueWithIdentifier and UIKit will do the rest.

Because of comments that are truncated, your code is hardly readable.

But you have already defined

let alert = UIAlertController(… )

So you should call

self.presentViewController(alert, animated: true, completion: nil)

and not create a new controller with

let viewController:UIViewController = UIViewController()

@junkpile

Thank you for your response.

I did not create my present the table view controller using presentViewController() as you noted. This is how I created the new view, tab bar, table view and Done button. As you will see I have some test constraint code because I am having some iPad constraint issues so I have a switch stmt that I am using to test the constraints with.

And again, for the sake of clairity, once the user taps the + button in the main view controller the resultant views and behavior are done programmatically (or so I think ...). Here is the code.

When the user taps the + button she triggers the following action method:

func getNewTableView() {

        let mainview = self.view

        var tableView: UITableView = UITableView()
        tableView = UITableView(frame: UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds, style: UITableViewStyle.Plain)
        tableView.delegate = self
        tableView.registerClass(UITableViewCell.self, forCellReuseIdentifier: "cell")

        if self.didSetup {return}
        self.didSetup = true

        let v = UIView()
        let v1 = UITableView()
     
        v.backgroundColor = UIColor.grayColor()
        v.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
     
        mainview.addSubview(v)
     
        NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([
            NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat("H:|-(0)-[v]-(0)-|",
                    options: [],
                    metrics: nil,
                    views: ["v":v]),
            NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat("V:|-(0)-[v]-(0)-|",
                    options: [],
                    metrics: nil,
                    views: ["v":v])].flatten().map{$0})
        v.preservesSuperviewLayoutMargins = true  /
     
        /
     
        v1.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false /
     
        v.addSubview(v1)
        var which : Int {return 1}
     
        switch which {
         
        case 1:
            /
            print("... in case 1: ........./n")
            NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([
                NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat("H:|-[v1]-|", options: [], metrics: nil, views: ["v1":v1]),
                NSLayoutConstraint.constraintsWithVisualFormat("V:|-[v1]-|", options: [], metrics: nil, views: ["v1":v1])
                ].flatten().map{$0})
         
        case 2:
            /
            print("... in case 2: ........./n")
            NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([
                v1.topAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.layoutMarginsGuide.topAnchor),
                v1.bottomAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.layoutMarginsGuide.bottomAnchor),
                v1.trailingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.layoutMarginsGuide.trailingAnchor),
                v1.leadingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.layoutMarginsGuide.leadingAnchor)
                ])
         
        case 3:
            /
            /
            print("... in case 3: ........./n")
            NSLayoutConstraint.activateConstraints([
                v1.topAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.readableContentGuide.topAnchor),
                v1.bottomAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.readableContentGuide.bottomAnchor),
                v1.trailingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.readableContentGuide.trailingAnchor),
                v1.leadingAnchor.constraintEqualToAnchor(v.readableContentGuide.leadingAnchor)
                ])
        default:break
        }   /
     
    }

The following function triggers the getNewTableView, the getNewTabBar and the createDoneButton functions:

@IBAction func getNewTableView(sender: AnyObject) {
        self.getNewTableView()
        self.getNewTabBar()
        self.createDoneButton()
    }

As seen the button tap triggers the getNewTableView, the getNewTabBar and the createDoneButton functions.

I hope the above code will help you understand what and how I have been trying to implement my app. Now all I have to figure out is how to get the user back to the ViewController.swift when she taps the Done button.

I sincerely appreciate your help.

@Claude31

Thank you for your response to my post. I have posted some new code above which hopefully will shed some light on how my app functions - or not!

Thanks again for your help.

In that case you would just need to keep a reference to the top-level view "v" in a property, and call v.removeFromSuperview() and set it to nil when you are done with it.

But I think presenting a separate table view controller would be more modular / maintainable.

@junkpile

Thank you very much for your help.

I will implement your suggestions to dismiss the view and think seriously about presenting a separate table view controller as you suggested as well.

I sincerely appreicate your help.