Low-level Core Data Tutorial

As you all know, simple Core Data applications can be built without much coding thanks to XCode Data Modeler and Interface Builder and, for basic things, you seldom need to deal with Core Data API itself. Nevertheless, a Core Data API does exist that allows you to programmatically define your data model, and in some occasions, it could be appropriate to define a data model programmatically.

A basic introduction to the Core Data API is given in the “Low-Level Core Data Tutorial” from Apple, which guides you through the steps necessary to build a simple command line app that stores a log of all its executions and displays then the log content.

The Low-level Core Data tutorial was partially ported some time ago to RubyCocoa by Ernest Prabhakar. In particular, how to execute a fetch request was not covered, so I decided to take Ernest’s sample a little bit further by implementing that part, left out in the first place. As I was at it, I also polished a little bit the original code, taking advantage of various RubyCocoa enhancements since version 0.4.2, current at the time the original post was written.

Core Data Command Line Client


# Port to Ruby/RubyCocoa of the Low-level CoreData Tutorial
# from Apple.
# Apple Inc. © 2005, 2006 Apple Computer, Inc.
#
# The RUbyCocoa version is released under the MIT License

require 'osx/cocoa'
OSX.require_framework 'CoreData'

module CoreDataCLI

  #-- constants
  STORE_TYPE = OSX::NSXMLStoreType
  STORE_FILENAME = "CDCLI.xml"

  #-- module variables
  @@mom = nil
  @@moc = nil

  #-- functions
  def self.managedObjectModel

    if @@mom
      return @@mom
    end

    @@mom = OSX::NSManagedObjectModel.alloc.init
    runEntity = OSX::NSEntityDescription.alloc.init
    runEntity.setName('Run')
    runEntity.setManagedObjectClassName('Run')
    @@mom.setEntities(OSX::NSArray.arrayWithObject(runEntity))

    #-- date attribute
    dateAttribute = OSX::NSAttributeDescription.alloc.init
    dateAttribute.setName('date')
    dateAttribute.setAttributeType(OSX::NSDateAttributeType)
    dateAttribute.setOptional(false)

    #-- processID attribute
    idAttribute = OSX::NSAttributeDescription.alloc.init
    idAttribute.setName('processID')
    idAttribute.setAttributeType(OSX::NSInteger32AttributeType)
    idAttribute.setOptional(false)
    idAttribute.setDefaultValue(OSX::NSNumber.numberWithInt(-1))

    #-- Validation Predicate and Warning
    lhs = OSX::NSExpression.expressionForEvaluatedObject
    rhs = OSX::NSExpression.expressionForConstantValue(OSX::NSNumber.numberWithInt(0))
    validationPredicate = OSX::NSComparisonPredicate.objc_send(
          :predicateWithLeftExpression, lhs,
          :rightExpression, rhs,
          :modifier, OSX::NSDirectPredicateModifier,
          :type, OSX::NSGreaterThanOrEqualToComparison,
          :options, nil)

    validationWarning = OSX::NSLocalizedString("Process ID must not be less than 0.",
          "Process ID must not be less than 0.")

    idAttribute.objc_send(
          :setValidationPredicates, OSX::NSArray.arrayWithObject(validationPredicate),
          :withValidationWarnings, OSX::NSArray.arrayWithObject(validationWarning))

    runEntity.setProperties(OSX::NSArray.arrayWithObjects(dateAttribute, idAttribute, nil))

    return @@mom
  end

  LOG_DIR = "CDCLI"
  def self.applicationLogDirectory
    ald = nil
    if (ald != nil)
      return ald
    end

    paths = OSX::NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(
          OSX::NSLibraryDirectory,
          OSX::NSUserDomainMask,
          true)

    if (paths.count == 1)
      ald = paths.to_a[0].to_s + "/Logs/" + LOG_DIR
      fileManager = OSX::NSFileManager.defaultManager
      isDirectory = "NO"
      if fileManager.fileExistsAtPath_isDirectory(ald, isDirectory)
        return ald
      end
      if fileManager.createDirectoryAtPath(ald, :attributes, nil)
        return ald
      end
      ald = nil
    end
  end

  def self.managedObjectContext

    if (@@moc)
      return @@moc
    end

    @@moc = OSX::NSManagedObjectContext.alloc.init

    coordinator = OSX::NSPersistentStoreCoordinator.alloc.initWithManagedObjectModel(managedObjectModel)

    log_file = applicationLogDirectory() + "/" + STORE_FILENAME
    url = OSX::NSURL.fileURLWithPath(log_file)
    print "url=", url, "\n"

# newStore, error = coordinator.addPersistentStoreWithType_configuration_URL_options_error(STORE_TYPE, nil, url, nil, nil)

    newStore, error = coordinator.objc_send(:addPersistentStoreWithType, STORE_TYPE,
          :configuration, nil,
          :URL, url,
          :options, nil,
          :error, error)

    if (newStore == nil)
      OSX::NSLog("Store configuration Failure\n%@", error.localizedDescription)
    end

    @@moc.setPersistentStoreCoordinator(coordinator)
    @@moc
  end

  class Run 1000) AND (processID < 8580)")
request.setPredicate(predicate)

result, err = moc.executeFetchRequest_error(request, err)

 if (result == 0 || err)
   OSX::NSLog("Error while fetching\n%@", err.localizedDescription)
   exit -3
 end

enumerator = result.objectEnumerator
while (run = enumerator.nextObject) != nil
  if (run)
    print "On ", run.date, " as process ID ", run.processID, "\n"
  end
end


Remarks

If you copy/paste the code above in a text file, let’s call it coredata_cli.rb for reference, each time you execute it in a shell terminal, it will log the execution date/time and process ID and then list the whole log content. You can play around with the predicateWithFormat argument so to filter the log by process ID or date, if you like. This code has been tested with RubyCocoa 0.11.0.

In comparison to the ObjectiveC implementation, look at how much cleaner is the Ruby code given the absence of memory management (retain/release) and the power of the kvc_wrapper directive provided by the RubyCocoa bridge.

PS: The cdcli.rb file linked from Ernest Prabhakar’s blog is not available anymore at that location. I could retrieve it thanks to the great web WayBack Machine accessible here and you can found the ruby file here.