iOS CoreData batch insert?

Question

In my iPhone application, i need to insert ~2000 records into Core Data before the user can use any features of the application. I am loading the records into CoreData from

Answer 1

I was looking for the answer to a similar question when I came across this one. @VladimirMitrovic's answer was helpful at the time for knowing that I shouldn't save the context every time, but I was also looking for some sample code.

Now that I have it, I will provide the code below so that other people can see what it might look like to do a batch insert.

// set up a managed object context just for the insert. This is in addition to the managed object context you may have in your App Delegate.
let managedObjectContext = NSManagedObjectContext(concurrencyType: NSManagedObjectContextConcurrencyType.PrivateQueueConcurrencyType)
managedObjectContext.persistentStoreCoordinator = (UIApplication.sharedApplication().delegate as! AppDelegate).persistentStoreCoordinator // or wherever your coordinator is

managedObjectContext.performBlock { // runs asynchronously

    while(true) { // loop through each batch of inserts. Your implementation may vary.

        autoreleasepool { // auto release objects after the batch save

            let array: Array? = getNextBatchOfObjects() // The MyManagedObject class is your entity class, probably named the same as MyEntity
            if array == nil { break } // there are no more objects to insert so stop looping through the batches

            // insert new entity object
            for item in array! {
                let newEntityObject = NSEntityDescription.insertNewObjectForEntityForName("MyEntity", inManagedObjectContext: managedObjectContext) as! MyManagedObject
                newObject.attribute1 = item.whatever
                newObject.attribute2 = item.whoever
                newObject.attribute3 = item.whenever
            }
        }

        // only save once per batch insert
        do {
            try managedObjectContext.save()
        } catch {
            print(error)
        }

        managedObjectContext.reset()
    }
}