Text File Index? - ios

Question

Good afternoon,
I am wanting to create a a Text file with a many different paragraphs. I want to show a different one everyday. Is there a way to create s sort of index and display a new paragraph each day?
I crated the app already, and the way I am updating is by going into my server and editing the text file and then downloading it into the app, and I have to update it every day and I don't want to do that anymore. I have about 2 years worth of daily paragraphs that I can simply have them all in a text file. I'm not sure if an index is the right approach to this.
I want to be able to have like a huge list of text paragraphs and then displaying a different one each day. Is there any way to do this? I am open to different suggestions! I just want to get it to work! Maybe someone can guide me through the right path.
Thank you!

Answer 1

First, start with the simplest thing that could possibly work:
Make a text file with all your paragraphs. Download the entire file into your app. In your app, split the file into paragraphs, choose one at random, and display it.
Now, if the above proves too slow, then consider optimising it. You could:
After downloading the text file (the first time), read through the file once and create an index with the offset of the start of each paragraph. Then, choose an index entry at random, seek to that point in the text file, read the paragraph, and display it.
Or, you could:
Create the index on the server and download it along with the text file. That saves the app from having to create the index itself.

Answer 2

There are probably easier/better ways to do this, but here's what I'd do...
I'd reorganize your text file into a CSV with two columns. The column on the left has the date paragraph should be displayed (in an easy to parse format), and the column on the right has the actual paragraph. When the app is first launched, it goes to the web, downloads and parses this whole file.
In your app, store these paragraphs in an NSDictionary, using the date as the key, and the paragraph as the value.
Now encode this NSDictionary to disc.
From now on, you don't need to redownload/reparse the file. You can just check in that dictionary, find the entry with the right date, and display that.
Now, ideally, you'd want your server to be able to tell your app when the file was last updated, and for your app to keep track of when it last downloaded the file. Any time the server's last update date is more recent than the app's last download date, the app should redownload, reparse, resave the file.
If you don't want to store the dates, you can simple put the paragraphs in a line separated .txt file. When you read the file in, you can store each paragraph into a separate array index very simply by doing something like this:
NSArray *paragraphs = [myTextDocContents componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:
[NSCharacterSet newLineCharacterSet]];