I'm building a messaging application. I update the badge count in the database via a sqlite trigger whenever any operation like insert/delete/read message happens.
Currently, though the value update in the DB happens asynchronously, I have no way to get notified about when the value changes in my application and hence am polling periodically.
Is there some way to setup an observer on a database value/publish some notification when a given value changes?
I know that I can do this easily by first updating the badge count in an in-memory property and then persisting the changes to the DB; but I am not very inclined to do this, since there are too many entry points for this value to change, and I don't want to add a SET property everywhere.
One possible option would be to define a trigger that is only called when this specific value in the database is updated. The trigger should then make a call to a user defined function you create in your app. You use the sqlite3_create_function function to add your own function to SQLite. Your trigger would like something like:
CREATE TRIGGER some_trigger_name
AFTER UPDATE OF some_column ON some_table
FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
SELECT my_custom_fuction();
END;
If needed, you can pass 1 or more arguments to your function.
Though that this might not be an option for you, Core Data does this well.
Related
I am in a situation where I allow the user to download a PFObject and modify it locally, and they can then either cancel the changes or hit Done, which will dismiss the editing interface but NOT upload the changes to Parse yet. They need to hit Save on the previous screen to write all changes to the database at once.
The problem is once the PFObject is modified, you cannot revert it to its prior state without refetching from the database. But I cannot always refetch the data from the database every time they hit Cancel because the prior state may not be uploaded to Parse yet (and that's a bad UX making them wait to discard changes that are only stored locally).
For example, imagine the user taps to edit the PFObject, they make changes then hit Done, then tap on it again and further edit the object, then hit Cancel. In this case, the object needs to be reverted to its prior state, but that state has not been uploaded to Parse yet. So I cannot refetch the data from the database to revert changes otherwise it would overwrite the changes they made the first time.
To solve this problem, I would simply fetch the PFObject and store a copy of it. I'd call that the transient object. I would have another property that stores the real object. The user would modify the transient object, and when they hit Cancel I would simply set that to nil, if they instead hit Done I would set the real object equal to the transient object, and once they finally hit Save I would save the real object to the database. That way I can be sure changes aren't being made to the real object until the user commits the changes. The problem is, PFObject does not adopt the NSCopying protocol (not sure why), therefore I cannot create a copy of the PFObject. Any change I make to it affects the real object.
How can this be resolved, without modifying the app's design that allows control over when the data is committed and later saved? Is there a way to extend PFObject and adopt NSCopying, has it been done before?
I did consider storing the attributes of the object in a dictionary and allow the user to edit that instead, then upon commit set each of those attributes on the PFObject. The problem with this solution arises with complex structures. In this app, I allow the user to modify multiple arrays that contain multiple PFObjects. It's just infeasible to try to recreate and later merge changes with complex structures like this beyond a single simple PFObject.
I ran into this same problem. I did not make any changes directly to the PFObject, but rather, saved the updates in an NSDictionary. When the user clicks the done button, I then update the PFObject and saveInBackground. I don't think there is a "discard local changes" option for PFObject. If you don't do this, the only option is to throw out the existing PFObject and fetch again.
Regarding the NSDictionary comment, perhaps NSArray would be better. The implementation really depends on your specific program, but I'll give a quick example. The NSArray we'll call instructionArray. Imagine there are 3 sections in a tableView. Also assume that the data source for each section is an NSArray of PFObjects. Now say you want to set the age property of each PFObject in Section 2 to 35.
Add an NSArray object (corresponding to an instruction to carry out) to the instructionArray. This instruction to carry out could have the form
Section to update
Property to update
Value to update to
So the object you'll add is #[#(2),#"age",#(35)];
Given that the user is probably carrying out a finite amount of instructions, it might not be that performance heavy to loop through the instructionArray in cellForRowAtIndexPath so when a cell uses its corresponding PFObject to figure out what to display, it can loop through the instructions after and change what is displayed as if the PFObject was updated.
When the save button is touched, loop through the instructions and actually edit the PFObjects themselves.
If you need the instructions to handle specific objects rather than sections, then you just have to update the structure of the instructionArray. Maybe you could include an identifier to indicate what type of instruction it is.
I am curious is it somehow possible to increment a field value in a CKRecord variable without fetching? So on client I am not curious about the recent value, I just want to increase whatever be the value is. The reason, operation should be as quick and easy as possible, instead of two message 'stream', I want initiate only one.
Unfortunately you can not. You have to read, change and then write the record. Make sure that you use the CKModifyRecordsOperation and leave the savePolicy to CKRecordSaveIfServerRecordUnchanged If you get an error then you could try read and write the record again.
There are several view controllers in my app where I need to sync the local contents with server using a method running in a background thread. Sometimes I need to insert data to my database on server if user has created any. The approach I am using here is to set a flag(something like isSynced = NO) on objects that I need to sync with server (there objects are in Core Data). When the syncing is complete my method will get rid of the flag(e.g. isSynced = YES) so it won't be sent again next time.
Now the problems is that the syncing method takes very long to complete(1 or 2seconds.). If now user pops out this particular view controller and swiftly comes back the previous call is still in progress and next one will be kicked off. The consequence is that there might be duplication in database.
My approach now is the make the syncing method to be called by a Singleton object:
#property (nonatomic) BOOL isSyncing;
//every time before syncing. check if object is available for syncing
if (!isSyncing) {
isSyncing = YES;
// sync server
// when complete
isSyncing = NO;
// post notification to view controller to reload table
} else {
// cancel because previous call is not finished
}
My concern is that if the call is cancelled my view controller will not be able to receive the notification is waiting for. I can fix this by posting another notification in the event of cancelation. I am wondering if this is the right to do this because I think that this problem should be pretty common in iOS development and there should be a standard way to deal with it
Your singleton approach may not be necessary. I don't see the harm in sending a database insert for each new object. You will still need to ensure each object is synched. That is, update the "isSynched" flag. Keep each object that needs to be synced in a "need to synch" list.
Then, update the "isSynced" flag by performing a background query on the database to check if the object exits. Then, use the result of the query to set the isSynched flag.
If the query result indicates the object is not in the database you then resend the object and leave it's "isSynced" flag set to NO.
If the query result indicates the object is in the database, set the "isSynced" flag to YES and remove it from your "need to synch" list.
An approach for preventing duplicate database entries is to make a unique key. For example, tag each with a hash based on the time and date. Then configure the table to ensure each key is unique.
I have an object that can be selected by a user click. With the current requirements of the app, at any time, there is no more than one of these items selected at any point during app execution.
I implemented a mechanism to enforce this, as follows:
Each of these objects has a unique identifier as a property.
When each object is created, it subscribes to the NSNotificationCenter listening for the MY_OBJECT_SELECTED notification.
When each object is selected, it posts the MY_OBJECT_SELECTED notification, with its unique Id as part of the userInfo dictionary.
Then, when each object receives the notification, it checks to see if its id is the same as the one in the userInfo. If it is, it does nothing, but if it isn't, it sets itself to unselected.
Is this a decent approach to the problem? If not, how would you do it?
It is a decent way of doing it, although it is not very efficient. The more objects you have, the more time you spend comparing IDs. The easiest way is to store your object pointers and IDs in a map table (or similar) and remember the last selected object. Whenever you select a new object, you clear the selection flag of the last selected object, then look up the new object and set its selection flag. It requires you to keep a collection of your objects, though.
The time required to update selections with this approach is independent of the number of objects you have.
If the object is spread all over the app,i.e. if it is a member in various classes. You can have a global object of same type and assign it to only that object which has been touched. In steps it will be like:
Have a global variable of object type.
At any object touch assign globalObject = currentObject;
do all operations on globalObject throughout app like calling methods and modifying object members(have a check for nil to ensure safety).
Reassign to different object with new touch.
Is there any way to manually track the changes done to a clientdataset's delta and update the changes manually on to then db. i have dynamically created a clientdataset and with out a provider i am able to load it with a tquery, now user will do some insert update and delete operations on the data available in the cds, and at final stage these data(modified) should be post in to database by using a tquery(not apply updates)..
After populating your data set from the TQuery call MergeChangeLog so that the records do not stand out as newly inserted, and be sure that LogChanges is set.
Then when at the final stage, before updating the query with the dataset, set StatusFilter so that only the records that you want to take action on should be showing. For instance;
ClientDataSet1.StatusFilter := [usDeleted];
You can also use UpdateStatus on a record to see if it has been modified etc..
But be careful that, is seems that there will be multiple versions of a record, and it is a bit difficult to understand how the "change log" keeps track. And there also can be multiple actions on a record, like modifying it a few times and then deleting it.
Change:= TPacketDataSet.create;
Change.Data:= YourClientDataSet.Delta;
while not Change.Eof do
begin
Change.InitAltRecBuffers(False);
if Change.UpdateStatus = usUnmodified then
Change.InitAltRecBuffers(True);
case Change.UpdateStatus of
usModified: ;//your logic read codes in Provider.pas for further hint
usInserted: ;//your logic read codes in Provider.pas for further hint
usDeleted: ;//your logic read codes in Provider.pas for further hint
end;
Change.Next;
end;
Above should work regardless of number of modified
Cheers
Pham