Store large lists of data in iPhone app so they are available to the UI

Question

Hi

A bit cryptic, which is also what drives me to start a thread in here, I simply can't find the words to Google the challenge.

Im building an app that will have 2 search views that displays 1400 and 16000 possible choices. It is plain lists, no relational or otherwise spanning data.

As far as I can figure out I have 3 possibilities:

1: Write a script to have it preloaded into my Core Data Model and pull it from there when I need the list.

2: Build a plist file I bundle with the app and read the data out from there.

3: Put a text/xml/json file into the app and read it from there..

4:… oh fourth crazy possibility, actually write a ValueObject.m that contains all these pieces of data.

I only need to display them in a tableView with a searchBar, have the user select one and Im done with it. (I pull a string value from the selection and stuff it into my webservice querry) As this is quite some lists, what would be a good way to go about it, I would like to avoid as much parsing/data handling as possible to speed things up.

Hope some can point me in a direction so I don't have to speed test each of these possibilities :) or even better someone comes along with a 5. and even better possibility:)

Thanks

Answer 1

I've used the plist approach (although with far less data) and it works well. Give it a try. If startup time is acceptable, it's a very straightforward way to go. If it takes too long, CoreData seems best.

Answer 2

Easiest way is to go with #2. You can't get much easier than an XML file that can be easily read into an NSArray. I don't have hard numbers, but I would have to guess this is the fastest option as well.

NSString* plistPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"largelist" ofType:@"plist"];
theArray = [NSArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:plistPath];