Question

I am building backend and frontend code for my iOS application. The frontend code will be build for iPhone and then iPad later. But the backend code is going to be the same. My few developers are working on backend and some on frontend. Backend, application uses CoreData. I was thinking to create backend code as static library and have it linked in frontend code. But that seems to be too complicated. Is there any other mechanism for example, Backend project say P1 is build as Empty application and frontend is build as P2. And somehow make sure P1 cannot use any of the classes/files/code from P2 (means P1 does not depend on P2) but P2 can use classes/API etc from P1. I want to enforce that P1 does not (inadvertently) uses any of P2 code to have the dependency separation clean.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think a static library is a good solution. Like you can create a helper class for fetching data from the core-data database. For example:

+ (NSArray *)fetchAllUsers;
+ (User *)fetchUserByName:(NSString *)name;

the front-end developers only know that you can call these methods. The back-end developers are responsible for the working of the method.

If you need an instantiation, consider a singelton class.

Edit: (Example for static core-data class)

+ (void)insertNewUserWithName:(NSString *)name
{
    NSManagedObjectContext *context = [self managedObjectContext];

    User *user = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"Users" 
                                                 inManagedObjectContext:context];

    [user setName:name];

    NSError *error;
    if (![context save:&error]) 
    {
        NSLog(@"Whoops, couldn't save: %@", [error localizedDescription]);
    }
}