CS193P - Lecture 9

iPhone Application Development

Data in Your iPhone App

Announcements
• Presence 2 is due on Tuesday 5/5 at 11:59pm
! Questions?
Announcements
• Friday optional lectures will now be recorded
! Should become available on iTunes U if all goes well!
! This Friday: Loren Brichter (http://www.atebits.com)
Announcements
• Final projects!
! Groups of 1-2 people
! Final 3 weeks of the course

! Due Sunday 6/7 at 11:59PM

! Presentations on Monday 6/8 from 12:15-3:15PM

• You must send us your proposal for approval

! Approval deadline is Monday 5/11
! But the earlier you’re approved, the earlier you can start...

• Students retain ownership of final projects

Frequently Encountered Issues
• “Calling a method on object X doesn’t do anything!”
! Remember that in Objective-C, messaging nil is allowed
! If the method has a return value, it will return zero or nil

! Try inspecting the value of the variable with NSLog() or gdb

Frequently Encountered Issues
• “My IBOutlet variables are nil!”
! Remember that view controllers don’t load their NIBs right away
! Don’t try to access IBOutlet variables in -init methods
! Instead, use -viewDidLoad or -viewWillAppear:

! -viewDidLoad called once after loading the view

! -viewWillAppear: called every time the view comes onscreen
Today’s Topics
• Data in Your iPhone App
! Saving & loading local data
! Accessing remote data over the Internet
Today’s Topics
• Property Lists
• iPhone’s File System
• Archiving Objects
• The Joy of SQLite
• Web Services
• App Data Flow
Property Lists
Property Lists
• Convenient way to store a small amount of data
! Arrays, dictionaries, strings, numbers, dates, raw data
! Human-readable XML or binary format

• NSUserDefaults class uses property lists under the hood

When Not to Use Property Lists
• More than a few hundred KB of data
! Loading a property list is all-or-nothing
• Complex object graphs
• Custom object types
Reading & Writing Property Lists
• NSArray and NSDictionary convenience methods
• Operate recursively
// Writing
- (BOOL)writeToFile:(NSString *)aPath atomically:(BOOL)flag;
- (BOOL)writeToURL:(NSURL *)aURL atomically:(BOOL)flag;

// Reading
- (id)initWithContentsOfFile:(NSString *)aPath;
- (id)initWithContentsOfURL:(NSURL *)aURL;
Writing an Array to Disk
NSArray *array = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@“Foo”,
[NSNumber numberWithBool:YES],
[NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:60],
nil];
[array writeToFile:@“MyArray.plist” atomically:YES];

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
! <string>Foo</string>
! <true/>
! <date>2009-04-29T15:26:18Z</date>
</array>
</plist>
Writing a Dictionary to Disk
NSDictionary *dict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
@“Name”, @“Evan”,
@“Lecture”, [NSNumber numberWithInt:9],
nil];
[dict writeToFile:@“MyDict.plist” atomically:YES];

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
! <key>Name</key>
! <string>Evan</string>
! <key>Lecture</key>
! <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
NSPropertyListSerialization
• Allows finer-grained control
! File format
! More descriptive errors

! Mutability

// Property list to NSData

+ (NSData *)dataFromPropertyList:(id)plist
format:(NSPropertyListFormat)format
errorDescription:(NSString **)errorString;

// NSData to property list

+ (id)propertyListFromData:(NSData *)data
mutabilityOption:(NSPropertyListMutabilityOptions)opt
format:(NSPropertyListFormat *)format
errorDescription:(NSString **)errorString;
More on Property Lists
• “Property List Programming Guide for Cocoa”
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/
Conceptual/PropertyLists/
iPhone’s File System
Keeping Applications Separate

Image (cc) by davidsilver on Flickr

Why Keep Applications Separate?
• Security
• Privacy
• Cleanup after deleting an app
Home Directory Layout
• Each app has its own set of directories
• <Application Home>
! MyApp.app
! MyApp
! MainWindow.nib

! SomeImage.png

! Documents
! Library

! Caches
! Preferences

• Applications only read and write within their home directory

• Backed up by iTunes during sync (mostly)
File Paths in Your Application
// Basic directories
NSString *homePath = NSHomeDirectory();
NSString *tmpPath = NSTemporaryDirectory();

// Documents directory
NSArray *paths =
NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory,
NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsPath = [paths objectAtIndex:0];

// <Application Home>/Documents/foo.plist
NSString *fooPath =
[documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@“foo.plist”];
Including Writable Files with Your App
• Many applications want to include some starter data
• But application bundles are code signed
! You can’t modify the contents of your app bundle
• To include a writable data file with your app...
! Build it as part of your app bundle
! On first launch, copy it to your Documents directory
Archiving Objects
Archiving Objects
• Next logical step from property lists
! Include arbitrary classes
! Complex object graphs

• Used by Interface Builder for NIBs

Making Objects Archivable
• Conform to the <NSCoding> protocol
// Encode an object for an archive
- (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder
{
[super encodeWithCoder:coder];
[coder encodeObject:name forKey:@“Name”];
[coder encodeInteger:numberOfSides forKey:@“Sides”];
}

// Decode an object from an archive

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder
{
self = [super initWithCoder:coder];
name = [[coder decodeObjectForKey:@“Name”] retain];
numberOfSides = [coder decodeIntegerForKey:@“Side”];
}
Archiving & Unarchiving Object Graphs
• Creating an archive
NSArray *polygons = ...;
NSString *path = ...;
BOOL result = [NSKeyedArchiver archiveRootObject:polygons
toFile:path];

• Decoding an archive
NSArray *polygons = nil;
NSString *path = ...;
polygons = [NSKeyedUnarchiver unarchiveObjectWithFile:path];
More on Archiving Objects
• “Archives and Serializations Programming Guide for Cocoa”
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/
Conceptual/Archiving/
The Joy of SQLite
SQLite
• Complete SQL database in an ordinary file
• Simple, compact, fast, reliable
• No server
• Great for embedded devices
! Included on the iPhone platform
“And just as you have received
SQLite for free, so also freely
give, paying the debt forward.”

D. Richard Hipp
When Not to Use SQLite
• Multi-gigabyte databases
• High concurrency (multiple writers)
• Client-server applications
• “Appropriate Uses for SQLite”
http://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html
SQLite C API Basics
• Open the database
int sqlite3_open(const char *filename, sqlite3 **db);

• Execute a SQL statement

int sqlite3_exec(sqlite3 *db, const char *sql,
int (*callback)(void*,int,char**,char**),
void *context, char **error);

// Your callback
int callback(void *context, int count,
char **values, char **columns);

• Close the database

int sqlite3_close(sqlite3 *db);
Demo:
Simple SQLite
More on SQLite
• “SQLite in 5 Minutes Or Less”
http://www.sqlite.org/quickstart.html
• “Intro to the SQLite C Interface”
http://www.sqlite.org/cintro.html
Core Data
• Object-graph management and persistence framework
! Makes it easy to save & load model objects
! Properties
! Relationships

! Higher-level abstraction than SQLite or property lists

• Available on the Mac OS X desktop
• Not available on iPhone OS 2.x...
Web Services
Your Application & The Cloud
• Store & access remote data
• May be under your control or someone else’s
• Many Web 2.0 apps/sites provide developer API
“I made a location-based
user-generated video blogging
mashup... for pets!”
Integrating with Web Services
• Non-goal of this class: teach you all about web services
! Plenty of tutorials accessible, search on Google
• Many are exposed via RESTful interfaces with XML or JSON
• High level overview of parsing these types of data
XML
Options for Parsing XML
• libxml2
! Tree-based: easy to parse, entire tree in memory
! Event-driven: less memory, more complex to manage state

! Text reader: fast, easy to write, efficient

• NSXMLParser
! Event-driven API: simpler but less powerful than libxml2
More on Parsing XML
• Brent Simmons, “libxml2 + xmlTextReader on Macs”
http://inessential.com/?comments=1&postid=3489
! Includes example of parsing Twitter XML!
• Big Nerd Ranch, “Parsing XML in Cocoa”
http://weblog.bignerdranch.com/?p=48
! Covers the basics of NSXMLReader
JSON
JavaScript Object Notation
• More lightweight than XML
• Looks a lot like a property list
! Arrays, dictionaries, strings, numbers
• Open source json-framework wrapper for Objective-C
What does a JSON string look like?

{
“instructor” : “Evan Doll”,
“students” : 60,
“itunes-u” : true,
“midterm-exam” : null,
“assignments” : [ “WhatATool”,
“HelloPoly”,
“Presence” ]
}
Using json-framework
• Reading a JSON string into Foundation objects
#import <JSON/JSON.h>

// Get a JSON string from the cloud

NSString *jsonString = ...;

// Parsing will result in Foundation objects

// Top level may be an NSDictionary or an NSArray
id object = [jsonString JSONValue];
Using json-framework
• Writing a JSON string from Foundation objects
// Create some data in your app
NSDictionary *dictionary = ...;

// Convert into a JSON string before sending to the cloud

jsonString = [dictionary JSONRepresentation];
Demo:
Flickr API with JSON
More on JSON
• “JSON Parser/Generator for Objective-C”
http://code.google.com/p/json-framework/
• “Introducing JSON”
http://www.json.org/
App Data Flow
Data Flow in Your Application
• Your objects may need to share data
• Don’t let this lead to tightly interwoven code
How Not To Share Data
• Global variables or singletons
! This includes your application delegate!
• Direct dependencies make your code less reusable
! And more difficult to debug & test

List Detail
Controller Controller

Don’t Do This!
Application
Delegate
Best Practices for Data Flow
• Figure out exactly what needs to be communicated
• Define input parameters for your objects
• For communicating back up the hierarchy, use loose coupling
! Define a generic interface (like delegation)

List Detail
Controller Controller
Delegates and Memory Management
• Delegates should be assigned, not retained, to avoid cycles
@property (assign) id delegate;

• When deallocating, if you’re another object’s delegate,

unset it to avoid leaving an invalid reference
- (void)dealloc
{
if (otherObject.delegate == self) {
otherObject.delegate = nil;
}
[otherObject release];

[super dealloc];
}
Recap
• Property lists
! Quick & easy, but limited
• Archived objects
! More flexible, but require writing a lot of code
• SQLite
! Elegant solution for many types of problems
• XML and JSON
! Low-overhead options for talking to “the cloud”
• Design your data flow thoughtfully
Questions?