Question

I am working on an application for the iPhone in which I want to get a start and end date for a Zodiac sign to display on the label. I am not sure how to store this info. I was thinking to store it in Core Data but that could be slow traversing it every time. My other idea is to have a NSDictionary of arrays for each sign. For example

self.zodiacSignsDates = [[NSDictionary alloc]initWithObjectsAndKeys:
                             [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"December 22",@"January 20",nil], @"Capricorn", 
                             [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"January 21", @"February 18",nil], @"Aquarius"
                             ,nil];

I might also use this NSDictionary later on to figure out zodiac sign for a birth date.

Please let me know what you think on on how to storing such data

Thanks!

Answer 1

Posting this as an answer, because of many comments. In addition: wouldn’t it be enough to just store the last day of the period in an array the same length as the zodiacs?

var signs = ["Capricorn","Aquarius", ... ];
var lastDay = ["01-20", "02-18", ... ];

last one, i promise. if you want to keep those english strings, you could do this:
(since I assume, you already have a list of zodiacs around)

var dates = [["December 22","January 20"],["January 21","February 18"],[etc,etc] ];

and then

private String[] getFromTo( string zodiac ){
   var idx = signs.indexOf(zodiac);
   return dates[idx];
}