How to create relational object in Objective-c for iPhone

Question

Here is the interface of my object:

@interface MyItem : NSObject {
 sqlite3 *database;
 NSInteger *primaryKey;
 NSInteger *accountKey;
 NSInteger *categoryKey;
 NSString *title;
 BOOL hydrated;
 BOOL dirty;
 NSData *data; // Why do I need this?
}

The primary key will be auto generated in Sqlite and I am storing the integers, foreign keys of account and category in the MyItem table.

The account and category will have a meaningful description. Should I add properties for the descriptions as well? Like so:

NSString *accountDesc;
NSString *categoryDesc;

So that in my Hydrate method I can do a join to category and account.

What is the best practice to do this?

My goal is on the initial launch of the App, I will display a Tableview with title and category descriptions.

Answer 1

Why not use Core data? You will get the best practice then - plus it is fast and it gives loads of other benefits.

Core data would create objects for you with exposed properties - and handle relationships - and lazily load the objects to make memory management much eaiser. You code becomes much easier to read too.