Another way to do an "initial sync" - ios

Question

I'm working on an app that has to work entirely offline and then sync up to a server.
The server can (and probably will) change depending on the project that is currently underway.
I've written the synchronisation stuff and it works really well. Everything gets updated both ways.
However, the initial sync of a device is basically a big info dump of thousands of records and it takes a really long time. I have analysed and optimised this but the time is now just from the sheer volume of data being synced and the relationships between that data.
A normal sync (i.e. sending and getting updates) only takes about 5 seconds from start to finish including reads, uploads, downloads and writes.
Is there a way I can "plug into" a computer and just import a DB file into the app?
Is there any other way of doing this other than going through the sync process and downloading and installing all this stuff on the device?
I can't do it at build time as the app is independent of which project it is on and each project has a different set of data.

Answer 1

Import the sqlite db into your app, and link it in your core-data stack in the app delegate. This massive amount of data should be shipped with the app and then syncing would make changes to that initial dataset.
This is how you link the sqlite to your core-data stack
- (NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *)persistentStoreCoordinator
{
if (_persistentStoreCoordinator != nil) {
return _persistentStoreCoordinator;
}
NSURL *storeURL = [[self applicationDocumentsDirectory] URLByAppendingPathComponent:#"MyAppName.sqlite"];
//Connects to sqlite---------------------------------------
NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
// If the expected store doesn't exist, copy the default store.
if (![fileManager fileExistsAtPath:[storeURL path]]) {
NSURL *defaultStoreURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:#"MyAppName" withExtension:#"sqlite"];
if (defaultStoreURL) {
[fileManager copyItemAtURL:defaultStoreURL toURL:storeURL error:NULL];
}
}
//end sqlite connection ---------------------------------------
NSError *error = nil;
_persistentStoreCoordinator = [[NSPersistentStoreCoordinator alloc] initWithManagedObjectModel:[self managedObjectModel]];
if (![_persistentStoreCoordinator addPersistentStoreWithType:NSSQLiteStoreType configuration:nil URL:storeURL options:nil error:&error]) {
NSLog(#"Unresolved error %#, %#", error, [error userInfo]);
abort();
}
return _persistentStoreCoordinator;
}