How can I get text from a text field and display it in an alert?

Question

Hello!  I am BRAND NEW to Objective-C and Xcode and iOS, so PLEASE be forgiving of what is going to be a stupid question.  I have a text field.  I want to enter some text, click "return", and see my text in an alert.  It doesn't serve any useful purpose, but this is how I learn.  So far, I am unsuccessful.  Here's my function from my HelloEarthViewController.m file:
-(IBAction)showInputMessageUITextField *)textField
if ([textField.text isEqualToString:@""])
    return;
UIAlertView *helloEarthInputAlert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
                                     initWithTitle:@"Name!" message:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Message: %@", textField.text]
                                     delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil];
// Display this message.
[helloEarthInputAlert show];
Then I go option+click the text field and drag it to File's Owner and connect it to "showInputMessage:"  Then I run it and the build succeeds, but nothing happens when I click my "return" button on the iPhone simulator.
What have I missed?  Where have I gone wrong? 

Answer 1

Okay, here's where I am.  I have this in my view controller .h file:
@interface HelloEarthViewController : UIViewController <UITextFieldDelegate>
    IBOutlet UITextField *textFieldTest;
@end
And this in my view controller .m file:
-(IBAction)showInputMessage
    if ([textFieldTest.text isEqualToString:@""])
        return;
    UIAlertView *helloEarthInputAlert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
                                         initWithTitle:@"Name!" message:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Message: %@", textFieldTest.text]
                                         delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil];
    // Display this message.
    [helloEarthInputAlert show];
And I have connected the text field to showInputMessage.  When I hit "return", however, I still get nothing.
Is an "action button" a real button?  From my limited understanding, the alert should launch when I click "return" since showInputMessage is attached to Editing Did End on the text field.
Thanks for the help.  The transition from writing C# for web applications to writing Objective-C for iOS applications is not going as smoothly as I'd anticipated.