Question

I’m trying to decide the best way to load data into my app, it’s basically a book, but I want to have control of the chapter line number and chapter name ( so I can add comments and notes under relevant lines) etc. Both options allow me to do this. There’s going to be about 25 large-ish chapters.

What would be the best overall in terms of the iPhone platform? The data is already on my computer I just need to select which format is the best?

I think things like memory management and perhaps other limitations within the iphone need to be considered?

Are there any other factors which need to be taken into account?

Thanks guys,

Ok so here are the two possible options to load the data :

XML:

<toolTipsBook>
−  <chapter index="1" name="Chapter Name">
<line index="1" text="line text here"/>
<line index="2" text=" line text here "/>
<line index="3" text=" line text here "/>
<line index="4" text=" line text here "/>
<line index="5" text=" line text here "/>
<line index="6" text=" line text here "/>
<line index="7" text=" line text here "/>
</chapter>

SQL Dump

-- Chapter 1 (Chapter 1)
INSERT INTO `book_text` (`index`, `chapter`, `line`, `text`) VALUES
(1, 1, 1, ' line text here '),
(2, 1, 2, ' line text here '),
(3, 1, 3, ' line text here '),
(4, 1, 4, ' line text here '),
(5, 1, 5, ' line text here '),
(6, 1, 6, ' line text here '),
(7, 1, 7, line text here ');

Answer 1

Apple’s plist format is a good choice for hierarchical data on the iPhone. It’s XML, but it’s supported by Foundation, so importing is as easy as [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:...].

I would suggest splitting everything into chapters and only keeping one or two loaded at a time if you’re worried about memory.