I’m prototyping a simple sports sim game for iPhone which will use Core data.
One the biggest challenges I’m facing is how to get the data into Core data in the first place.
The second biggest challenge is whether I should use core data’s persistent stores or use fixed files (JSON) for pre-fixed game data.
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Concept
The general concept is that a player can start a new game or continue an existing one.
When they start new game they would use pre-fixed data. (IE. A database which is read-only.)
When they continue game they would use a different database (the game database).
I am not sure how to deliver such a feature.
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Prototype
Currently, I am experimenting with this prototype:
PHP Web App -> 2. API -> 3. iPhone
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A local PHP web app which acts as a CMS.
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A basic API which lets me expose specific data in a JSON format.
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Read the JSON into Core Data using TouchJSON/other tools.
I have no intention of making the API public/online (for various reasons), so the method I have described is a only meant to ever be a one-way process.
This will of course cause a problem because I need to make the data read-only.
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In sports sim games you will often find them using fixed files (.txt, .csv, .dat, etc) and then they read this data into memory or a database.
Therefore, using this concept I could:
Save the JSON as fixed files and read them at run-time into memory/core data.
And then whenever the player starts a new game, the existing core data store will simply be wiped.
However, having said that I’ve heard that you can use persistent stores as a method to overcome this problem.
Therefore I was thinking of setting up 2 persistent stores;
1) A pre-fixed read-only persistent store
2) The actual game store (which gets overwritten if you start a new game).
But which is better?
Creating JSON fixed files for consumption, or using 2 persistent stores?
I apologize if my question/concept is overly complex; but would welcome better/simpler solutions where possible.
I think you can use Core Data for applications that is going to store data on it and the database is empty when it starts but if you needed you data store to be pre-populated with data it is better to load it from fixed data like sqlite or xml files.