CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosdatabasecore-dataparse-platform
Alexey
Alexey

Reputation: 1177

Ship iOS app with pre-populated Parse datastore

Given the recent addition of local datastore for iOS to Parse, it should be possible to rely exclusively on Parse to manage app's database, thus totally avoiding Core Data. Does this sound like a good idea? What would be the pros and cons of such an approach?

In particular, I am wondering whether it will be possible to pre-populate Parse local datastore with some data, and include this database as a part of the app when submitting to appstore.

UPDATE

From the comments that were posted, it seems that people misunderstood my intended use case. Sorry guys, I should have made my question more clear from the beginning. Let me clarify it now, anyway.

So, there is some amount of data in Parse database on the web, same for every user, e.g. a catalogue of books. It will be updated every now and then. What I want is to publish an app on App Store which is pre-populated with Parse data store, as it stands at the moment when the app is published. For that to happen, I'd like to pin all available data when building my app and ship that data store along with the app. The problem is that the pinned data will be stored on device's (or emulator's) file system, it won't be part of the project. That's why if I build the app and submit it to app store, the data won'd be included.

Any suggestions how to attach the local data store to the app?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 522

Answers (2)

rickerbh
rickerbh

Reputation: 9911

The local data store is stored in the sandboxed part of the filesystem in iOS. When you package the store with the app, it'll live in the signed application folder, not in the location Parse expects it to be.

So, if you were looking to do this, you'd need to include your default local data store in the application on building/submission, and copy it into the location Parse expects it to be in (which is Library/Private Documents/Parse and the file is called ParseOfflineStore) when your application starts up. This must happen before you call enableLocalDatastore, or an empty one will be initialized.

It should be possible!

Upvotes: 2

soulshined
soulshined

Reputation: 10602

Read this in the docs. Parse has a highly resourceful and fully documented guide for their backend.

https://parse.com/docs/ios_guide#localdatastore

Per my comment above concerning didFinishLaunchingWithOptions; it has been a place for your to create objects on launch, I have been doing that for a long time. Especially with channels. However, by enabling the local data store you can access those objects you pinned or created with a simple query with no reachability per your concern. Either way they both are created on disk. Core Data has a lot more cons. Especially with NSFetchedResultsController and the flexibility it offers. It's all up to you what you want to do with your app. PFQueryTableViewController isn't bad but if your direction and vision for your app is to be exclusively Parse then why not. It's a great feature. However I didn't see anything in the docs about the local queries effecting your limit so I would suggest looking into that if you have a large audience performing numerous queries per second.

Take advantage of their docs. They do a great job at keeping us informed.

Upvotes: 0

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