CODEWITHSUNDEEP
objective-ciosipadcore-dataxml-parsing
TeaCupApp
TeaCupApp

Reputation: 11452

Need suggestions on which option will be efficient to store data on iPad

This is my first time that I am working on a big project for a client. So I was not sure how to solve this problem. However I have come up with two different ideas but I need professionals opinion about which one is better :)

Situation :

There is an application which runs on different client's iPad. Application data is stored by using giant XML file. This XML file is shared among all client by a server. So a server has a centralised copy and each client has their own copy. Once client made changes to their XML copy they updates server copy in and other client updates their copy by updated server copy.

Now only one client can make changes at one time, To fix this I have logic by which before client starts editing XML they need to get ownership from server and server will only allow one client to edit at one time.

Visual Representation :

enter image description here

Now on client side I have to think of a logic by which I will update my client copy and upload it to server. There are two options,

Option 1 :

In option 1, I can directly manipulate XML file by using GDataXML parser and upload that copy to server. For persistence I can save client copy on my iPad in document directory.

enter image description here

Option 2 :

In option 2, I can read XML file create a CoreData representation for local storage. When ever I update data inside core data it will I will change XML file too and than upload that file on server. Double work but I guess better persistence.

enter image description here

Now which one more robust and advisable? Personally I was planning to do option 2 because it seems more robust as I am persisting application data in core data. But option 1 seems more easy work but I don't know how good persistency will remain.

Sorry for lengthy question,

Thanks for any input given.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 89

Answers (3)

Scott Ahten
Scott Ahten

Reputation: 1171

There are a number of factors which would influence selecting the second option over the first.

  • How big is the XML file? If you need to work with very large documents, you may need to incrementally parse the XML (SAX) into core data. This will allow you to access the document's contents without loading it all into memory at once.

  • Do you need to run complex queries in the data? If so, you may be better off using core data fetch predicates, rather than xpath or XSL.

  • Are you already using core data? Depending on how the XML data is structured, it might be simpler overall to import the data into your existing persistent store.

Otherwise, you can probably make due with parsing the entire document and either traversing the resulting tree or querying with xpath.

Upvotes: 2

Ali3n
Ali3n

Reputation: 1244

If you want a regular update of data , then use CoreData

Upvotes: 1

Eugene
Eugene

Reputation: 10045

If you need to create an object graph based on what you get from server and show it to user (which you most probably need to do), you should stick up to second option, since it allows easy and robust data persistence.

If you do not need to present user with any data from the XML file you can, of course, store it in the Documents directory.

So, if this is a client application and it has at least some visual representation of the data from an XML file you should use CoreData.

Upvotes: 1

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