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1
Jan
2014
 

Fetched Properties; useful?

by Marcus Zarra

Core Data has a number of features and abilities that are not commonly used. Chief among those are fetched properties. In discussing them with a number of developers, most have never heard of them and those who have heard of them couldn’t come up with a viable use case for them.

To be honest, I don’t have a lot of use cases for them myself. They are definitely not one of the core features of Core Data that I recommend people learning when they are initially getting comfortable with the framework.

In this article we will discuss one use case for fetched properties and the impacts.

## The Use Case

The use case for fetched properties that I have run across a few times comes into play when you have more than one persistent store file on disk. Imagine you are building a recipe application (one of my favorite examples). You decide to include a pre-built read-only database with existing recipes. However, your application has the ability to add notes and social comments to a recipe.

You want to keep the recipe database as read only (you have a separate one for new recipes) but you want the user to be able to add comments. Where do we put the data?

In this contrived situation, storing the comments (and other metadata) in another store makes sense. Unfortunately we can’t have relationships across physically separate stores.

Enter the Fetched Property.

## Fetched Property

A fetched property is a property added to a `NSManagedObject` entity that instead of storing a value or a relationship, it stores a `NSFetchRequest`. When the property is accessed for the first time the `NSFetchRequest` is fired and the results are returned.

A fetched property always returns a `NSArray` (well a subclass but that is a minor detail) and it can be configured to sort the results.

Unfortunately, the editor in Xcode does not permit adding sort criteria so the only way to add a sort to a fetched property is to create the fetched property in code. Hopefully that will be corrected in some future release of Xcode.

What does a fetched property look like? In the Core Data model editor, a fetched property is added just like an attribute or a relationship. Then in the Data Model inspector you can configure the `NSFetchRequest`.

A Fetched Property shown in Xcode's data modeler

A Fetched Property shown in Xcode’s data modeler

The Destination is the entity that will be returned by the fetched property. The predicate is a string representation of the `NSPredicate` configured within the `NSFetchRequest`.

Further, the predicate can use one of two variables to help configure it:

`$FETCH_SOURCE` gets replaced by a reference to the entity that owns the fetched property. By using this variable we can reference properties in the owning entity.

`$FETCHED_PROPERTY` gets replaced by a reference to the the property description of the fetched property. The property description includes key value pairs that are accessible from within the predicate. I have not run across a situation where I have used this variable.

## The sharp edges

There are unfortunately some concerns with fetched properties.

Unlike a relationship, there is no way to pre-fetch a fetched property. Therefore, if you are going to fetch a large number of entities and then desire to access the fetched property for those properties, they are going to be fetched individually. This will drastically impact performance.

Fetched Properties are only fetched once per context without a reset. This means that if you add other objects that would qualify for the fetched property after the property has been fetched then they won’t be included if you call the fetched property again. To *reset* the fetched property requires a call to `-refreshObject:mergeChanges:`.

A fetched property always returns an array. While this is not a major issue if in fact you want more than one object returned. However, when that is not the case it is an additional method call that you need to make every time or add a convenience method. More code equals more bugs.

## To use or not to use

Fetched properties are not a main line piece of Core Data. It appears that even the Core Data team (or the Xcode team at least) agrees with that assessment based on how little effort is given to them in the model editor. Should you use them?

It depends. If you are joining two separate persistent stores and need a *soft* relationship between entities in those stores then yes, you can use them. They do work.

Be mindful of the edges, they are sharp.

 
12
May
2010
 

WWDC 2010 T-Shirts

by Marcus Zarra

In celebration of the late notice of WWDC this year; CIMGF is offering late notice on our T-shirts!

In previous years I took orders and then delivered them to you at WWDC. I discovered something from that it. It was a huge pita for everyone involved. Therefore, this year I am going to do it differently.

I have created a storefront on SpreadShirt where you can order one of several different T-shirts (and a jacket) for this year’s WWDC. The new shirts include the new CIMGF logo which will soon adorn this beloved site.

I hope to see many of you wearing the T-Shirts this year in San Francisco!
WWDC 2010 T-Shirt

 
8
May
2009
 

MacBook Pro looking for a good home

by Marcus Zarra

Having finally decided that I prefer the 1920×1200 display of the 17″ Macbook Pros I am finally committing to one size of laptop. To help force myself into that commitment I am going to be selling my gently used late 2008 15″ Macbook Pro.

The specs are:

* 2.53 Ghz Intel Core Duo
* 4GB RAM
* 320 GB Harddrive
* 512 Nvidia Video cards (9400 and 9600)
* 2 USB
* 1 FW/800

All of the original hardware and equipment are included.

The asking price is $1,800.00 plus shipping.

The machine is in perfect condition as shown in these photos on flickr (http://tr.im/kQ11).

If you are interested in this machine please contact me at marcus at cimgf dot com.

 
3
May
2009
 

Core Data and Plug-ins

by Marcus Zarra

Thanks to the ability to have configurations in a Core Data Managed Object Model and being able to save data to multiple Persistent Stores, it is possible to have a Core Data Model that is constructed from not only an internal model, but from the models of all the plug-ins that are loaded into the application.

In this example we are going to build a basic application with the following requirements:

  • A plug-in framework
  • Plug-ins can extend the managed object model of the application
  • Removal of a plug-in should not corrupt the persistent store.

(more…)

 
26
Mar
2009
 

Don’t Blindly Trust D.E.B.B.

by Marcus Zarra

In some recent discussions I have been shocked to realize that many developers treat DEBB as gospel. This is a terrible idea. DEBB is written by people like me and I am a moron.

(more…)

 
26
Feb
2009
 

Don’t Screw Your Customers Over

by Marcus Zarra

As part of working with the print world I occasionally have to actually print something out. Publishers like to have paper copies of contracts, tax documents, etc. Its a pain in the rear and outdated but a necessary evil at this point.

One such occasion happened today and I needed to mail out a new signed contract to THe Pragmatic Programmers. As luck would have it, I lost my aging copy of Mail Factory, an app that prints nice mailing labels, since the last time I needed to print a label. No big deal, I went to their website and tried to download a new copy. Since the last time I used it, about a year ago, they have cancelled that product and rebranded it Labels & Addresses. Still no big deal, I downloaded the new application and recreated my label.

When I went to print the label I saw in the preview window that they printed “trial version” on the label. Ok, now this is starting to get annoying. If you are going to let me demo the software, let me demo it! Don’t put trial version on the very first label I try to print!

I took a deep breath, remembered that I have been using their software for many years now and decided to just buy a license. They even took my old license in and gave me a discount. Blood pressure dropped, things were fine. Then I ran into their payment processor — Digital River.

I am stunned, stunned, that anyone is still using these thieves! Immediately they try to charge me a “license backup” fee which is an Opt-Out. Annoyed, I opt out of that. On the payment page I have a choice for PayPal. Surprise, there is a $3.50 “manual processing fee” for PayPal. This is NOT 1998! Still, I wanted to print a pretty label so I back out, add a credit card and hit process. I am then presented with this:

SWREG - Error
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Did my order go through or not? Who knows? I check my credit card provider, no charge. But are they slow or did it fail?

I contact the software vendor but they are only open until noon EST. Guess I will find out tomorrow or the next day since their site claims they strive to respond within 1-2 days. A happy customer this does not make.

Advice

Do not do this to your customers. Stop using these payment processing services that charge you insane amounts of money and screw your customers over. Spend a day (yes it only takes ONE day) and write your own that links to Google or PayPal. Or just use E-Junkie like I do. This is a customer facing system. When you bend your customers over with additional fees, cryptic error messages and other junk, they are not going to come back to you and say “please sir I would like some more”.

Also, respond to customer email within 24 hours. Don’t let it sit. Don’t give your customers a 7 hour window per day that you handle email. This is just bad.

My Solution

I deleted their software, will be asking for a refund (IF they ever charge me) and I wrote the label by hand. I will not be going back to them any time in the future for any of their software unless they stop using Digital River.

 
1
Dec
2008
 

MacDev 2009 Christmas Offer

by Marcus Zarra

As most of you know, Scotty is hosting a developer’s conference next year in England. To make this event even more enticing, he has just announced a Christmas offer.

Sign up for MacDev2009 before the 24th of December and get FREE copies of both Code Collector Pro and Changes App together worth over £40.

There are going to be some great speakers at this event and I am looking forward to it.

 
4
Oct
2008
 

Announcement: Marcus will be a Panelist at O’Reilly’s iPhoneLive conference

by Marcus Zarra

Now that the NDA has been lifted we can all finally come out of the closet :)

If you have not heard, O’Reilly is hosting a conference on November 18, 2008 to discuss all things iPhone. I have been invited to attend the conference as a Panelist.

Please come and join the conference, if nothing else, to heckle me :)

iPhone Live

The list of speakers (as opposed to panelists), is quite impressive and definitely worth the trip.

Speakers

 
9
Jul
2008
 

A git quickie

by Marcus Zarra

After reading Fraser Speirs’ excellent write-up on his conversion over to git, I followed a few of the links to find a bash script to display your current git branch in the command prompt. Following yet another link from that post showed how to convert the bash script to zsh.

Here is my contribution to move that from the prompt to the right side of the screen.

function parse_git_branch {
  git branch --no-color 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/(\1)/'
}
function precmd() { RPS1="%~$(parse_git_branch)" }
export PS1='> '

Note that the last line just gives me a very short left hand prompt which I prefer.

GitBranchDisplay
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

 
8
Jul
2008
 

A Case Against Dot Syntax

by Marcus Zarra

I was not born an Objective-C developer. I know that in some circles that is considered a mortal sin. Before learning Objective-C and Cocoa I had developed in a great number of languages dating back to the early 1980’s. I tell you this so that what you are about to read next is taken in the light that it was intended.

Take a look at the following lines of code:

- (void)doSomethingSpecial
{
	myVar.itsAttribute = 10;
	myOtherVar.itsAttribute = 20;
}

Now tell me, what is myVar and myOtherVar. Is it an object or a struct? Can’t tell from that piece of code can you. That is half of my argument against dot syntax in Objective-C. It makes the meaning of your code unclear. Objective-C is known for its self documenting nature. Dot Syntax removes that.

(more…)