Ios – Clearing NSUserDefaults

cocoa-touchiosnsuserdefaultsobjective c

I'm using +[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] to store application settings. This consists of roughly a dozen string values. Is it possible to delete these values permanently instead of just setting them to a default value?

Best Answer

You can remove the application's persistent domain like this:

NSString *appDomain = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundleIdentifier];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] removePersistentDomainForName:appDomain];

In Swift 3 and later:

if let bundleID = Bundle.main.bundleIdentifier {
    UserDefaults.standard.removePersistentDomain(forName: bundleID)
}

This is similar to the answer by @samvermette but is a little bit cleaner IMO.

Related Solutions

Ios – Constants in Objective-C

You should create a header file like

// Constants.h
FOUNDATION_EXPORT NSString *const MyFirstConstant;
FOUNDATION_EXPORT NSString *const MySecondConstant;
//etc.

(you can use extern instead of FOUNDATION_EXPORT if your code will not be used in mixed C/C++ environments or on other platforms)

You can include this file in each file that uses the constants or in the pre-compiled header for the project.

You define these constants in a .m file like

// Constants.m
NSString *const MyFirstConstant = @"FirstConstant";
NSString *const MySecondConstant = @"SecondConstant";

Constants.m should be added to your application/framework's target so that it is linked in to the final product.

The advantage of using string constants instead of #define'd constants is that you can test for equality using pointer comparison (stringInstance == MyFirstConstant) which is much faster than string comparison ([stringInstance isEqualToString:MyFirstConstant]) (and easier to read, IMO).

Ios – Core Data: Quickest way to delete all instances of an entity

iOS 9 and later:

iOS 9 added a new class called NSBatchDeleteRequest that allows you to easily delete objects matching a predicate without having to load them all in to memory. Here's how you'd use it:

Swift 5

let fetchRequest: NSFetchRequest<NSFetchRequestResult> = NSFetchRequest(entityName: "Car")
let deleteRequest = NSBatchDeleteRequest(fetchRequest: fetchRequest)

do {
    try myPersistentStoreCoordinator.execute(deleteRequest, with: myContext)
} catch let error as NSError {
    // TODO: handle the error
}

Objective-C

NSFetchRequest *request = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] initWithEntityName:@"Car"];
NSBatchDeleteRequest *delete = [[NSBatchDeleteRequest alloc] initWithFetchRequest:request];

NSError *deleteError = nil;
[myPersistentStoreCoordinator executeRequest:delete withContext:myContext error:&deleteError];

More information about batch deletions can be found in the "What's New in Core Data" session from WWDC 2015 (starting at ~14:10).

iOS 8 and earlier:

Fetch 'em all and delete 'em all:

NSFetchRequest *allCars = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init];
[allCars setEntity:[NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Car" inManagedObjectContext:myContext]];
[allCars setIncludesPropertyValues:NO]; //only fetch the managedObjectID

NSError *error = nil;
NSArray *cars = [myContext executeFetchRequest:allCars error:&error];
[allCars release];
//error handling goes here
for (NSManagedObject *car in cars) {
  [myContext deleteObject:car];
}
NSError *saveError = nil;
[myContext save:&saveError];
//more error handling here