Querying Objective-C Data Collections
In my Xcode LLDB Tutorial, I mention using the debugger to interrogate data collections. Well, I wanted to elaborate on that idea a little because there are some techniques you can use for querying objective-c data collections that are very powerful.
If you develop apps for clients, you my be one of the lucky ones–the ones who actually get to model your data and use Core Data to store and access it. But I’m betting there are many of you who aren’t the lucky ones–or at least not on all of your projects. From time to time you have to deal with data in whatever format your client gives it to you. Maybe you’ve even suggested taking the CSVs or Plists (or whatever other formats clients have come up with to ruin your life) and actually loading those into Core Data. But they don’t get Core Data and they shoot down the idea. Well, you may want to just walk away from the gig. However, if you’re like me, you’ve got bills to pay and clients (the good ones at least) tend to help you accomplish that. Well, fortunately for us, Objective-C makes dealing with this kind of data manageable using a little technique known as KVC, Key-Value-Coding, with array filtering and sorting.
This is not an advanced topic, so if you’re already familiar with how KVC and array filtering and sorting works, this post may not help you as much. But for those of you who are fairly new to iOS development, you need to know about this magical feature of the language as all the senior iOS developers use it and you should too. (more…)