R – How to import data from Microsoft Access / SQL Server 2005 into Core Data

As you've read Core Data vs SQLite 3, you know that Core Data and the persistence mechanism (SQLite in this case) are largely orthogonal. Core Data is really about managing an object graph and it's main use case is for the model component of an MVC architecture. If your application fits nicely into this architecture, it's probably worth using Core Data as it will save you a lot of code in the model component. If you already have a working model component (e.g. from the existing desktop app), then Core Data won't buy you much. A hybrid approach is possible-- you can do your own persistence/querying and build a Core Data in memory store which you populate with the result of a query and use this in-memory store via Core Data as the model component for your app. This isn't common, but I've done it and there are no major roadblocks.

To answer your specific questions:

1. You can assign a version number to the entire persistent store and retrieve that information via +[NSPersistentStore metadataForPersistentStoreWithURL:error:], without even opening the store. An equivalent +setMetadata:forPersistentStoreWithURL:error also exists, of course. If you want to store the version info in an entity instance instead of in the persistent store metadata, you can load only a single object. With an SQLite persistent store, Core Data does a very good job of fetching only what you need.

2. The NSPredicate API, is very easy to learn and it seems to do a decent job of compilation to SQL. At least for databases of the size you could fit on an iPhone it's certainly been adequate (performance wise) in my experience. I think the SQL vs. Core Data question is slightly misguided, however. Once you get the result of a query what are you going to do with it? If you roll your own, you'll have to instantiate objects, handle faulting/uniqueing (if you don't want to load the entire result of a query into memory immediately) and all of the other object graph management facilities already provided by Core Data.

I'm a little late to this party, but i'm doing something similar for GroceryList. I have data stored in plist files that i need in my CoreData sqlite store. I wrote a command line foundation tool that runs on my Mac which parses the plist files and then using my Core Data object model creates a sqlite store. I run this command line tool as part of my build (for some build configurations) so that i can regenerate the data at will. To create this kind of tool in xcode, select File -> New Project -> Mac OS X -> Command Line Tool and select "Core Data" from the "type" menu. Here's some sample code:

#import <objc/objc-auto.h>

int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) {

    objc_startCollectorThread();

    //You may not know this, but NSUserDefaults can be used to parse command line arguments!
    //in this case, the arguments are passed in like this:
    // -fullMomPath /hd/some/path/file.mom -fullStorePath /hd/some/path/file.sql
    //by passing in the storePath, the calling script knows where the sqlite file will be and can copy it to the resulting application bundle
    NSUserDefaults *args = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];   
    NSString *momPath = [args stringForKey:@"fullMomPath"];
    NSString *storePath = [args stringForKey:@"fullStorePath"];

    // Create the managed object context
    NSManagedObjectContext *context = managedObjectContext(momPath, storePath);


    //build and save your NSManagedObjects here
    //in my case, i parse some plist files and create GroceryList type stuff, but whatever you do is your business.

    return 0;
}

NSManagedObjectModel *managedObjectModel(NSString* momPath) {

    static NSManagedObjectModel *model = nil;

    if (model != nil) {
        return model;
    }

    NSURL *modelURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:momPath];
    model = [[NSManagedObjectModel alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:modelURL];

    return model;
}



NSManagedObjectContext *managedObjectContext(NSString* momPath, NSString* storePath) {

    static NSManagedObjectContext *context = nil;
    if (context != nil) {
        return context;
    }

    context = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] init];

    NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *coordinator = [[NSPersistentStoreCoordinator alloc] initWithManagedObjectModel: managedObjectModel(momPath)];
    [context setPersistentStoreCoordinator: coordinator];

    NSString *STORE_TYPE = NSSQLiteStoreType;

    NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:storePath];

    NSError *error;
    NSPersistentStore *newStore = [coordinator addPersistentStoreWithType:STORE_TYPE configuration:nil URL:url options:nil error:&error];

    if (newStore == nil) {
        NSLog(@"Store Configuration Failure\n%@",
              ([error localizedDescription] != nil) ?
              [error localizedDescription] : @"Unknown Error");
    }

    return context;
}