I have some inefficiency in my app that I'd like to understand and fix.
My algorithm is:
fetch object collection from network
for each object:
if (corresponding locally stored object not found): -- A
create object
if (a nested related object locally not found): -- B
create a related object
I am doing the checking on lines A and B by creating a predicate query with the relevant object's key that's part of my schema. I see that both A (always) and B (if execution branched into that part) generate a SQL select like:
2010-02-05 01:57:51.092 app[393:207] CoreData: sql: SELECT <a bunch of fields> FROM ZTABLE1 t0 WHERE t0.ZID = ?
2010-02-05 01:57:51.097 app[393:207] CoreData: annotation: sql connection fetch time: 0.0046s
2010-02-05 01:57:51.100 app[393:207] CoreData: annotation: total fetch execution time: 0.0074s for 0 rows.
2010-02-05 01:57:51.125 app[393:207] CoreData: sql: SELECT <a bunch of fields> FROM ZTABLE2 t0 WHERE t0.ZID = ?
2010-02-05 01:57:51.129 app[393:207] CoreData: annotation: sql connection fetch time: 0.0040s
2010-02-05 01:57:51.132 app[393:207] CoreData: annotation: total fetch execution time: 0.0071s for 0 rows.
0.0071s for a query is fine on a 3GS device, but if you add 100 of these up, you just got a 700ms blocker.
In my code, I'm using a helper to do these fetches:
- (MyObject *) myObjectById:(NSNumber *)myObjectId {
NSFetchRequest *fetchRequest = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init];
[fetchRequest setEntity:[self objectEntity]]; // my entity cache
[fetchRequest setPredicate:[self objectPredicateById:objectId]]; // predicate cache
NSError *error = nil;
NSArray *fetchedObjects = [moc executeFetchRequest:fetchRequest error:&error];
if ([fetchedObjects count] == 1) {
[fetchRequest release];
return [fetchedObjects objectAtIndex:0];
}
[fetchRequest release];
return nil;
}
MyObject *obj = [self myObjectById];
if (!obj) {
// [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName: ... etc
}
I feel this is wrong and I should do the check some other way. It should only hit the database once and should come from memory thereafter, right? (The SQL gets executed even for objects that I know for sure exist locally and should have been loaded to memory with previous queries.) But, if I only have myObjectId from an external source, this is the best I could think of.
So, perhaps the question is: if I have myObjectId (a Core Data int64 property on MyObject), how should I correctly check if the relevant local object exists in CD store or not? Preload the whole set of possible matches and then predicate a local array?
(One possible solution is moving this to a background thread. This would be fine, except that when I get the changes from the thread and do [moc mergeChangesFromContextDidSaveNotification:aNotification]; (getting changed objects from background thread by way of notification), this still blocks.)