Inefficient CoreData IN Query - ios

I've got what should be a pretty simple CoreData setup that looks like this:
Track {
NSSet *artists;
NSSet *genres;
}
Artist {
NSSet *tracks;
}
Genre {
NSSet *tracks;
}
So the idea here is, a Track can have multiple Genres and Artists. There is an inverse relationship back to Track in both cases.
I'm trying to get a list of Artists which have at least one Track of a given Genre. I'm using the following predicate: [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY tracks in %#", genre.tracks].
Most of the time this is fast, but sometimes I have a Genre with 10k+ Tracks. This generates a SQL query with 10k+ variables... this takes a long time to run.
I've tried all kinds of things to avoid this including:
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY %# in tracks", genre.tracks]
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF IN SUBQUERY(tracks, $t, %# IN $t.genres)", genre]
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"(SUBQUERY(tracks, $t, %# IN $t.genres).#count > 0)", genre];
And probably some more that I've forgotten. Each of these compiles, but returns no Artist objects.
What can I do to improve upon the efficiency of the IN query I started with (which works)?

You can use
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"(SUBQUERY(tracks, $t, ANY t.genres = %#).#count > 0)", genre]
which gives the same result as your original predicate, but avoids to build a query with many parameters.

Related

NSPredicate to query many-to-many relationships

I have two Core Data classes that are related to each other with many-to-many relation. Let the classes be Item and Group, where Item.groups can reference to multiple Group, and Group.items to multiple Item objects.
I am trying to use NSPredicate to query all Item objects that do not belong to a specific Group. Using [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY group == %#", specificGroup] to query Item objects I can get the inverse set of what I want. It has proven hard to accomplish the opposite.
What I have tried and found not working:
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"NONE groups == %#", specificGroup] // always returns 0 results
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"NOT (ANY groups == %#)", specificGroup] // always returns 0 results
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY groups != %#", specificGroup] // always returns 0 results
Any help much appreciated.

Calling method on object in NSPredicate with Core Data

I have a 'position' entity with a to-many relationship to 'employee's. I want to use NSPredicate to do something like this
[position.employees containsObject:meEmployee]
There is a call to perform NSPredicate with block, but sadly it can't be used with CoreData.
How can I do this?
If you are fetching position entities with any employees matching meEmployee then you can use a predicate like this:
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFornat:#"ANY employees == %#", meEmployee];
But if the inverse relationship for employees is position, you can achieve the same with:
meEmployee.position

Data Retrieval With three entities without using manual looping

I have three entities.
I need to retrieve all the lectures that teach a certain student.
So far the solution i was able to come up is
first to use a subquery to retrieve all the courses the student takes by
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate
predicateWithFormat:#"SUBQUERY(students, $student, $ student.name ==
'student two').#count > 0"];
I execute the fetched request to obtain fetchedObjects.
Next i compare all the lecture objects with fetchedObjects. The lecture who conducts a course in fetchedObjects is the person who teaches the student in question.
Is there a much neater method of doing this without doing a comparison by hand ?
I mean can i do it using predicates alone?
To fetch all lecturers that have a course with the given student, use the predicate
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SUBQUERY(courses, $c, ANY $c.students.name == %#).#count > 0", studentName]
Remark: In your first example (fetch all courses for a student), you don't need a SUBQUERY:
[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY students.name == %#", studentName]
Do you want to retrieve "Course" entity or "Lecturer" entities ?
for Course you could try this predicate
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"students.name = %#",NAME];
now you have Course entities and you can get Lecturers too,
for Lecturers you could try
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY courses.#unionOfArrays.students.name = %#",NAME];

CoreData - Fetch request with relationship object

please confirm if i understand that right...
Imagine there is an entity 'person' and an entity 'credit_card'.
So one 'person' can have many 'credit_card's.
The person entity has the attributes: name: STRING and age: INT
and relationship: creditcards (to many) inverse
and the credit card entity has: card_number: INT and valid_date: DATE and relationship: card_user (to one) inverse
In my code i have a specific person (ManagedObject) called f.e. Person *currentUser. If i now want to get all credit cards of this specific person with a specific 'valid_date' i would create a fetch request (for Entity 'credit_card') with following predicates:
NSPredicate *predicate1 = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:
#"valid_date == <NSDate object>"];
NSPredicate *predicate2 = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:
#"ANY card_user like currentUser"];
This predicate works well for me, but is that the right way? Should i really ask for: "ANY relationship name like ManagedObject" ?
If I'm understanding what you want correctly, all you need to do is use the creditcards property on your Person *currentUser and filter it down:
NSSet *setOfCreditCards = currentUser.creditcards;
NSPredicate *filter = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat: #"valid_date == %#", date];
NSSet *cardsWithValidDates = [setOfCreditCards filteredSetUsingPredicate:filter];
The reason you tell CoreData about relationships is to avoid making another query from scratch.
You do not need to use the ANY key word if you have set up you core data model correctly. Specifically Credit cards need to have a person relationship back to the person object (you should get a warning if you didn't do this). Then you could combine both predicates into one like this
NSPredicate* predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"person == %# AND valid_date == %#", currentUser, valid_date];

NSPredicate for a Core Data Search

I have 3 NSManagedObjets; Person, Stuff, and Collection.
I want to use a NSPredicate to get a list of all Collections that ThePerson has.
Example: Scott has objectA and objectB which are in collection Letters and object1 which is in collection Numbers.
I want to be able to do a fetch request and get back collection Letters and Numbers.
I tried:
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"ANY stuffs.persons == %#", person];
And:
NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SUBQUERY(stuffs, $s, ANY $s.persons == %#)", scott];
Any suggestions?
Your SUBQUERY syntax is wrong (for a full explanation, see this answer or this answer). It should be something like:
SUBQUERY(stuffs, $s, ANY $s.persons == %#).#count > 0
Since it seems that you already have a reference to a ThePerson object, you don't need to do a fetch or use a predicate. You can traverse the relationships you've declared to get the collections. You can get all of the Collections that ThePerson has by using:
NSSet *collections = [person valueForKeyPath:#"stuffs.collections"];

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