I'm currently updating an app which I developed quite a long time ago. I'm wondering what's the best way to update the sqlite database via REST api.
I'm thinking about the following process:
When the user is opening the app the device will send the current database version (locally stored in a .plist) to a REST webservice.
The webservice compares the client version to the web version - if there is a new one available I would like to send the entire database to the client (no delta updates).
Now I'm thinking what's the better way to "send" the data to the client. Download a sqlite? Or create a JSON at the webservice (what means somehow overhead). The sqlite is currently about 100 kb.
Anyone an idea?
If
there is no user data to preserve and there won't be any in the future, e.g. if your database is completely static
it is safe to assume its size is not going to increase significantly
your database model hasn't changed and is highly unlikely to change in the future
you're 86% sure that you'll never again be requiring a proper api to a similar online database, featuring delta updates and a generic format like json
go ahead and transmit that replacement sqlite. Otherwise, do it properly!
Related
I have an application which uses the data from web server. When you first launch the app, it downloads the data and then work with it. But what if the data on web site was changed. How can I know from the application that the data was changed, and if so, what data should I download?
My first idea was each time when you run the application to check the number of entries in the local database on your phone and the number of entries on web server, and if they are not equal, delete all data in local database and then download all data again. But I think that it will take more time than if the application just loads 5-10 needed records instead of all data.
The second idea was when the information on the site changes, website somehow has to inform the application to load some records. But I don’t know if it is possible to do(
Another idea was to compare the id of the last entry in the application database with last id on website. And if they are not equal download the information from the next id.
Are there any suggestions how can I accomplish this?
I am not sure that you have any database or web services but my suggestion is parsing data from the web with JSON or XML.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSXMLParser_Class/
this class reference is will be clear for you.
Also in my opinion, if you are new in swift and want to choose easy way for this operation search for iOS package managers.
If you want to use a package manager for your project, e.g Pod
https://cocoapods.org/pods/Alamofire
would be a good startig point.
Alamofire is an HTTP networking library written in Swift.
Hope to helped you
In iOS, I've had experience working with local-only SQL, and server-only SQL accessed over PHP.
My question is, the app that I'm planning to write will have a local database and a remote database, which is probably pretty common. I'm planning to basically have the iOS app update from certain tables in the server's database.
My question is: Is there a simple or common way to compare the list of columns in a given table, and copy any that are changed or missing from the server to the local database?
Example, if I had a table full of data, and then added a new column on the server, is there a standard way to have the local iOS database reflect that new column?
The idea that I came up with was start both databases as a blank new database, and then any change I add a new SQL script on the server to update the local DB- then, if the iOS device detects a new database revision it would run the update scripts and anything missing would be added. I was just hoping there would be a better way, as this could get messy.
If you use Sqlite in both sides, which would be a zero risk choice for future development, and if you develop a migration system of your own (check Entity Framework Migrations or https://github.com/mocra/fmdb-migration-manager for ideas), you can simply compare latest migration versions and transfer them accordingly. This would be the wisest choice, in my humble opinion.
You should choose webservice for making updates to your iOS app database with Server database. That will be quite easy and efficient way and also Json and xml libraries are powerful way to parse your data. Let me know if you have further queries!
Currently I'm developing an iOS MMO game using cocos2d-x. The game uses many data tables (excel files) which are created by the designer. These tables contains such numbers as how much gold(crystal, etc..) will be needed for upgrading a barrack.
My question is, is that how to update that tables once if the tables have been modified on the server side?
My option: Use SQLite to store table on client side, once the tables has been modified on server side, the server will parse the tables (excel files) and send the data in JSON format.
then the client parse the JSON string and save that data to SQLite file.
Is there any better way? I find that some game stores CSV files on client side, how do they update those CSV files?
How you store the data (and in which format) is entirely up to you, although the framework does provide some helper classes (checkout ccUserDefault). The simplest way to check whethere data files on the client side are up to date is to checksum them (either apply a checksum to the data stored in the file or on the whole file itself). So to check for sync, the server side app applies a checksum to the data and so does the client (using the same algorithm, of course ;) ) and the numbers are compared; if they match, the data is in sync.
This is arguably more reliable if the server-side app generates the data files and sends them down, rather than relying on the client-side app to do it. But as long as the server knows how to generate data files using the same method that the client does, then the success of the client's file generation process can always be verified using this same checksum method.
I am currently building an iPhone app that is using Core Data and sqlite databases where the user will be reading static information from the database throughout the app. I have the issue where we may update the information in the database but not want to do a full update of the app, just the database. Can someone please help me out with either a easy function or a tutorial of how to go to a website or server and download the file which will replace the database that we have already put into the app? I'm new in xcode and I`m doing my first app.... thanks for your help
I think what would be a good idea is for your website to publish the data that must be stored in sqllite over REST, possibly in JSON or XML format.
This blog post describes how you could do just that. I must say that its approach to retrieving the content from the webservice is kind of low-level but it'll get the job done. Maybe RestKit can help you take care of all the low-level networking/http stuff.
I assume you want the static data locally so you don't require a constant internet connection for your app to work. Another option is to request the static data from the web and persist it in a file (NSUserDefaults etc...). But, that depends on how complicated the static data is and whether you have to query into that data. If you need to issue queries on that static data, a DB is definitely better.
You can also do a combination where you download updated DB if available async while your app works. You could have a setting in user defaults which is the current static data DB. If updated, you switch the current setting and re-establish the DB connection under a lock.
Here's how to make an http request using iOS.
rest web services in iphone
If you're downloading db data, don't convert the NSData to a string like in that sample ...
Also, ASI-HTTP-Request is popular. Here's samples on how to download a file:
http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/How-to-use
http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?NSUserDefaults
We are trying to create an iPhone application that will automatically receive data from a database. Which is a database that will work with Xcode. Our goal is that users can go to our website and input information. That data will be recorded to a database. Once the user downloads our app, the info should then be retrieved from the database and included in the app. We are wondering what database is suitable. It must be able to receive information from a website AND submit it to an application.
You're unlikely to find a iOS "aware" database that can automatically sync content over the internet.
However, you can of course obtain the data over the internet yourself and then insert it into the local database on the device, in which case the popular (and supported out of the box) SQLite would seem like an obvious choice.
As #Deepak also suggests, you could use Core Data which is a (sort-of, ish) ORM that can automatically use SQLite as it's underlying storage mechanism.
The solution that most people use in this case is to use an RDBMS like MySQL and build a web-service layer on top of the database for the entities that your iPhone app is interested in.
This way, when a user goes to the web-app, they can add the data that you allow them to add there, and later on they can access the same data from the iPhone app via the web-service layer also.
Couchbase's new iOS-Couchbase framework is in beta right now - all the functionality of Apache CouchDB on your favourite developer platform - at https://github.com/couchbaselabs/iOS-Couchbase. the iOS release is new but we're looking for it to go places!
Its awesome sync abilities would allow you to pull down any relevant content from your website via HTTP/JSON, or further formats using shows and lists if needed. Pushing data the other way is just as easy. Sync can be continuous, or on demand, bidirectional or one way.
Take a look at some of the Couch App frameworks (not for iOS but for your website)
http://techzone.couchbase.com/community/articles/couchdb/recipes
http://www.mail-archive.com/user#couchdb.apache.org/msg13928.html lots of comments on this thread
A+
Dave