UITableView - change section header color

Question

How can I change color of a section header in UITableView?

EDIT: The answer provided by DJ-S should be considered for iOS 6 and above. The accepted answer is out of date.

Answer 1

This is an old question, but I think the answer needs to be updated.

This method does not involve defining and creating your own custom view. In iOS 6 and up, you can easily change the background color and the text color by defining the

-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView 
    willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view 
    forSection:(NSInteger)section

section delegate method

For example:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    // Background color
    view.tintColor = [UIColor blackColor];

    // Text Color
    UITableViewHeaderFooterView *header = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *)view;
    [header.textLabel setTextColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];

    // Another way to set the background color
    // Note: does not preserve gradient effect of original header
    // header.contentView.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
}

Taken from my post here: https://happyteamlabs.com/blog/ios-how-to-customize-table-view-header-and-footer-colors/

Swift 3 / 4

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int){
    view.tintColor = UIColor.red
    let header = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView
    header.textLabel?.textColor = UIColor.white
}