Searching Core Data vs. Plist

Question

I am searching 350 dictionary objects. Would it be more efficient to store the data in Core Data or a plist for searching?

Basically, each object is a dictionary with 8 key-values. The 350 objects are stored online in a JSON feed. I would like to download the feed when the app first launches, and then store the data into either core data or plist. In the app, there is a table with several object as default. A user is then able to add/delete these items. When a user clicks add, I want to display to the user all of the 350 objects, as well as provide a search mechanism.

In that case, should I store the JSON feed into a Plist or using Core Data?

Answer 1

It depends. If you aren't running into an actual performance issue, do whichever is more readable and appropriate for your application. For example, if you are saving data for which the user can add records of some sort, core data handles common situations for that and can be used with a fetched data controller to manage a table quite smoothly. It can also easily bind to your object model so you don't have to do key lookups.

If you have a reasonable amount of static data or editable values to a static list of keys and you always need to load all of it, go ahead and load a plist for convenience. Post more information about your specific situation and I can update my answer.

UPDATE:

I think you'll probably want to use Core Data for a few reasons. First, if each of these objects have the same 8 keys, you'll want to represent each one with a bound object instead of a dictionary. Second, Core Data is meant to be searched, sorted, and filtered. Third, with NSFetchedResultsController it isn't much harder to bind it to a table (with right indexes) or scroller selector. If you name the properties of your NSManagedObject the same as your 8 keys, it'll be pretty easy to load from JSON as well using KVC.

You could use a plist, but will have to do more leg-work.

Answer 2

As with many things in life, it depends. I would say a plist would probably be fine as long as the data is not too large to keep in memory. Also, if the data is static, I would lean toward plist. CoreData is better if you have a lot of data or a lot of related data objects and that data changes over time.

Based on your edits. I agree that Core Data is the way to go. Whenever you are adding/updating/deleting/sorting/searching/filtering data on a frequent basis, I prefer Core Data and that is Apple's recommended method as well.