Handling Touch Event in UILabel and hooking it up to an IBAction

Check it out:

UILabel *label = ...
label.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGesture =
      [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self 
                                              action:@selector(labelTap)];
[label addGestureRecognizer:tapGesture];

The trick is to enable user interaction.

UILabel inherits from UIView which inherits from UIResponder. All UIresponder objects can handle touch events. So in your class file which knows about your view (which contains the UIlabel) implement:

-(void)touchesBegan:(NSSet*)touches withEvent:(UIEvent*)event;

In interface builder set the UILabel's tag value. when touches occur in your touchesBegan method, check the tag value of the view to which the tag belongs:

UITouch *touch = [touches anyObject];

if(touch.view.tag == MY_TAG_VAL)
label.text = @"new text";

You connect your code in your class file with the UILabel object in interface builder by declaring your UILabel instance variable with the IBOutlet prefix:

IBOutlet UILabel *label;

Then in interface builder you can connect them up.

You can use a UIButton, make it transparent, i.e. custom type without an image, and add a UILabel on it (centered). Then wire up the normal button events.

Swift 3

You have an IBOutlet

@IBOutlet var label: UILabel!

In which you enable user interaction and add a gesture recognizer

label.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
let tapGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(userDidTapLabel(tapGestureRecognizer:)))
label.addGestureRecognizer(tapGesture)

And finally, handle the tap

func userDidTapLabel(tapGestureRecognizer: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
  // Your code goes here
}