Question

I want to save an high-score for local use only. A single int, that holds your highest score so i can test against it when a new score is made.

Would you recommend using the plist?

Something like:

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSString *finalPath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Info.plist"];
NSDictionary *plistData = [[NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:finalPath] retain];

versionLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100,100,60,25)]; // for example
versionLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
versionLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
versionLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:10];
NSString *versionString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"v%@", [plistData objectForKey:@"CFBundleVersion"]];
versionLabel.text = versionString;
[self.view addSubview:versionLabel];

will this data be available the next time the app is opened?

Answer 1

The fastest and easiest thing to do, IMHO, would be to use NSUserDefaults. You get the speed of reading/writing to a plist, but you don’t need to deal with creating a whole new file just for a single value. The code for setting the high score would look like this..

[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setInteger:100 forKey:@"high_score"];

Boom, that’s all you need. Then, when you next launch the app and want to check that high score, perhaps in a -(void)gameEnded method, or – (void)viewDidLoad, you just say

NSInteger lastHighScore = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] integerForKey:@"high_score"];

lastHighScore will now be the value stored in the user defaults, which you previously saved. Using setInteger:forKey: will overwrite the previous value if the key already exists.