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iOS

Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points
Posted by Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points

Product catalog

I am trying to figure out the best way to make a product catalog. I want to be able to drill down to a detail view using tableViews.

I have 5 product lines. and each product line has 20 products. In a detail view i want to display an Image, name, description and a youtube video.

what i am wondering about is. What is the best way to store this information. JSON file, PLIST file, XML file, or write it in programatically?

Any help would be appreciated.

5 Answers

Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points
Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points

Will it be a one off list? Will you be updating it often, so keep a list on a web server?

If it's local you could have a plist or JSON file. You could use SQLite, this might be overkill for (5x20) items.

The Blog Reader would easily be adaptable to this.

Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points
Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points

The file with the content would be on a web server for easy updates if needed. I would have to write the JSON file manually.

could it be written like this

{
   "Products": {
     "thunder": {
      "Mammoth": {
        "name": "Mammoth",
        "info": "Firework battery"
      },
      "NoLimit": {
        "name": "No Limit",
        "info": "Firework battery"
      }
    },
"Hotstuff": {
  "goldrush": {
    "name": "Gold Rush",
    "info": "Firework battery"
  },
  "thebeast": {
    "name": "The Beast",
    "info": "Firework battery"
  }
}

} }

Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points
Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points

You can write it in the way that best suits your needs. Take a look at the Treehouse Blog API:

{"posts":[{"id":22230,"url":"http:\/\/blog.teamtreehouse.com\/build-a-self-destructing-messaging-app-for-the-iphone","title":"Build a Self-Destructing Messaging App for the iPhone","date":"2013-08-28 09:47:31","author":"Treehouse","thumbnail":null}]}

Then you could amend that to your fields:

{ "products": [ { "id":1, "image":"http:\/\/www.images.com\/image1.png", "name":"...", "description":"blah blah", "video_url":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/123" }, { ADD MORE PRODUCTS } ] }

Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points
Thomas Skjelstad
Thomas Skjelstad
11,541 Points

why does JSON have untraditional http:\/\/blog.teamtreehouse.com\/build-a-self-destructing-messaging-app-for-the-iphone" / in the address?

Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points
Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points

you need to escape certain characters like /.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/983451/where-can-i-find-a-list-of-escape-characters-required-for-my-json-ajax-return-ty

\" \ \/ \b \f \n \r \t \u four-hex-digits

\b Backspace (ascii code 08) \f Form feed (ascii code 0C) \n New line \r Carriage return \t Tab \v Vertical tab \' Apostrophe or single quote \" Double quote \ Backslash character