NSFetchedResultsController ignores fetchLimit?

Question

I have a NSFetchedResultsController to update a UITableView with content from Core Data. It's pretty standard stuff I'm sure you've all seen many times however I am running into slight problem. First here's my code:

NSFetchRequest *fetchRequest = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init];

 NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Article" inManagedObjectContext:self.managedObjectContext];

 [fetchRequest setEntity:entity];

 [fetchRequest setFetchLimit:20];

 NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"(folder.hidden == NO)"];
 [fetchRequest setPredicate:predicate];

 NSSortDescriptor *sort1 = [NSSortDescriptor sortDescriptorWithKey:@"sortDate" ascending:NO];
 [fetchRequest setSortDescriptors:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:sort1, nil]];

 NSFetchedResultsController *controller = [[NSFetchedResultsController alloc]
         initWithFetchRequest:fetchRequest
         managedObjectContext:self.managedObjectContext
         sectionNameKeyPath:nil
         cacheName:nil];
 [fetchRequest release];

 controller.delegate = self;

 self.fetchedResultsController = controller;

 [controller release];

 NSError *error = nil;
 [self.fetchedResultsController performFetch:&error];
 if (error) {
  // TODO send error notification
  NSLog(@"%@", [error localizedDescription]);
 }

The problem is that initially the store has no entities as it downloads and syncs from a webservice. What happens is that the NSFetchedResultsController fills the table with over 150 rows of entities from the store, which is how many the webservice returns. But I am setting a fetch limit of 20 which it appears to be ignoring. However, if I close out the app and start again with data already in the store, it works fine. Im my delegate i do this:

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark NSFetchedResultsControllerDelegate methods

- (void)controllerWillChangeContent:(NSFetchedResultsController *)controller {
 [self.tableView beginUpdates];
}


- (void)controller:(NSFetchedResultsController *)controller didChangeSection:(id  <NSFetchedResultsSectionInfo>)sectionInfo
 atIndex:(NSUInteger)sectionIndex forChangeType:(NSFetchedResultsChangeType)type {

switch(type) {
    case NSFetchedResultsChangeInsert:
        [self.tableView insertSections:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:sectionIndex] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        break;

    case NSFetchedResultsChangeDelete:
        [self.tableView deleteSections:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:sectionIndex] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        break;
    }
}


- (void)controller:(NSFetchedResultsController *)controller didChangeObject:(id)anObject
atIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath forChangeType:(NSFetchedResultsChangeType)type newIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)newIndexPath {

UITableView *tableView = self.tableView;

switch(type) {

    case NSFetchedResultsChangeInsert:
        [tableView insertRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObject:newIndexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        break;

    case NSFetchedResultsChangeDelete:
        [tableView deleteRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObject:indexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        break;

    case NSFetchedResultsChangeUpdate:
        [self configureCell:[tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath] atIndexPath:indexPath];
        break;

    case NSFetchedResultsChangeMove:
        [tableView deleteRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObject:indexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        [tableView insertRowsAtIndexPaths:[NSArray arrayWithObject:newIndexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationFade];
        break;
    }
}


- (void)controllerDidChangeContent:(NSFetchedResultsController *)controller {
 [self.tableView endUpdates]; 
}

Which is pretty much copy-paste from Apple's dev documents, any ideas what's goin on?

Answer 1

From apple doc: https://developer.apple.com/reference/coredata/nsfetchrequest/1506622-fetchlimit

If you set a fetch limit, the framework makes a best effort, but does not guarantee, to improve efficiency. For every object store except the SQL store, a fetch request executed with a fetch limit in effect simply performs an unlimited fetch and throws away the unasked for rows.