Searchbar with core data issues - swift

Question

I have a search bar.And data displayed in labels with scrollview.
For ex:
core data Fields :
1.id
2.company
3.Employe Name
4.Address
If i type id,company or Employee Name in searchbar i want to dispaly associated results.
my code :
For search data :
func searchBar(searchBar: UISearchBar, textDidChange searchText: String) {
var request = NSFetchRequest(entityName: "Agency")
request.returnsObjectsAsFaults = false
var countResult : NSArray = context.executeFetchRequest(request, error: nil)!
let result = NSPredicate(format: "SELF CONTAINS[c] %#",searchText)
self.filtered = self.countResult.filteredArrayUsingPredicate(result!)
if (filtered.count == 0 ) {
searchActive = false;
}else {
searchActive = true;
}
println(filtered)
}
It shows an error " 'Can't use in/contains operator with collection".
These codes cannot satisfy what i want.And also i dont have a idea how to fetch the related rows according to enter value in search bar.
Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

The first problem is your predicate - you're trying to use CONTAINS on an NSManagedObject subclass, but CONTAINS only works with String. To check whether your search text is contained within any of your managed objects you need to evaluate whether it is contained in each attribute (in your case id, company and empolyeeName, I'm assuming they're all Strings).
To do this you should change your predicate to:
let searchPredicate = NSPredicate(format: "id BEGINSWITH %# OR
company BEGINSWITH %# OR
employeeName BEGINSWITH %#",
searchText, searchText, searchText)
I would recommend using BEGINSWITH instead of CONTAINS[c] since when searching your user is likely to be entering the first part of the phrase. Also, as Apple said in their 2013 WWDC talk Core Data Performance Optimization and Debugging -
...we've got begins with and ends with and that's by far the cheapest query that you can execute.
...
Contains is more expensive because we have to work along and see
whether it contains...
And in the case of a search, you want it to be fast!
Secondly, you don't need to filter your results after getting them back from CoreData. You can set the predicate property on your NSFetchRequest and your returned results will be filtered. For example:
let request = NSFetchRequest(entityName: "Agency")
request.predicate = // Your predicate...
let results = context.executeFetchRequest(request, error)
// Now do what you need with the results.
A final note, it's best not to force unwrap your results from executeRequest in case there is some problem and nil is returned - in that case your app would crash. You could instead use:
if let unwrappedResults = results {
// Now do what you want with the unwrapped results.
}

Answer 2

I suspect it has something to do with your use of SELF in the predicate format, and the "collection" referred to in the error message is the controller sub/class within which your code resides.
Try something like this (forgive me I'm Obj-C not Swift so may have the syntax incorrect).
let searchAttribute = <<entity.attribute key path>>
let result = NSPredicate(format:"%K CONTAINS[cd] %#",searchAttribute, searchText)
Where %K refers to the key path, that in the case of Core Data is your entity attribute. For example: Agency.name if that attribute exists for your Agency object.
Read about Predicate Format String Syntax.
UPDATE after third comment...
In my apps my solution includes the creation of a custom method in an extension of the Core Data generated NSManagedObject subclass. If that sounds like you know what I mean, let me know and I will post details.
In the meantime, create a custom method in whatever class your UISearchBar is controlled... (apologies Obj-C not Swift)
- (NSString *)searchKey {
NSString *tempSearchKey = nil;
NSString *searchAtrribute1 = Agency.attribute1;
NSString *searchAtrribute2 = Agency.attribute2;
NSString *searchAtrribute3 = Agency.attribute3;
NSString *searchAtrribute4 = Agency.attribute4;
tempSearchKey = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%# %# %# %#", searchAtrribute1, searchAtrribute2, searchAtrribute3, searchAtrribute4];
return tempSearchKey;
}
You'll obviously need a strong reference for your Agency entity object to persist within the class, otherwise you will need to embed this bit of code into your searchBar function.
Work OK?