WWDC 2013 Core Data Performance - Optimization and Debugging

These are the things that I thought were most useful to me:

1. Don't fetch more than you need. Only 10 or so rows are visible so set a batch size on your NSFetchRequests.

Example:

NSFetchRequest *request = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:@"Contact"];

request.fetchBatchSize = 20;

2. Optimize your data model. Put binary data in separate entities and use external storage. Duplication isn't always a bad thing, if it speeds up your data query.

3. Prefetch relationships if you know you need them.

4. Consider returning dictionaries instead of managed objects.

Example:

NSFetchRequest *request = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:@"Quake"];

[request setResultType:NSDictionaryResultType];

[request setPropertiesToFetch:@[@"magnitude"]];

5. Use SQLite to perform your calculations.

Example:

NSFetchRequest *request = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:@"Quake"];
NSExpressionDescription *ed = [[NSExpressionDescription alloc] init];
 ed.name = @"minimum";
 ed.expression = [NSExpression expressionForFunction:@"min:"
            arguments:@[ [NSExpression expressionForKeyPath:@"magnitude"]]];
[request setPropertiesToFetch:@[ ed ]];

6. Use SQLite to group your results automatically.

Example:

NSExpressionDescription *ed = [[NSExpressionDescription alloc] init];
 ed.name = @"count";
 ed.expression = [NSExpression expressionForFunction:@"count:"
arguments:@[ [NSExpression expressionForKeyPath:@"magnitude"]]];
 [request setPropertiesToFetch:@[ @"magnitude", ed ]];
 [request setPropertiesToGroupBy:@[ @"magnitude" ]];

7. Use SQL Logging.

Pass argument flags = {1,2,3} on launch:

-com.apple.CoreData.SQLDebug 1

8. Optimize predicates. Text comparisons are expensive. Put numeric comparisons first.

NSFetchRequest *request = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:@"Contact"];

Bad:

request.predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"firstName == %@ AND age > %i", @"John", 40];

Good:

request.predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"age > %i && firstName == %@", 40, @"John"];

9. Predicate Costs (Low to High):

Beginswith/Endswith < Equality < Contains < Matches