Unexpected behavior of NSFetchRequest - core-data

Question

I have created few entities in context for saving it in db using
AppCalendarEntity *appCalendar = [AppCalendarEntity getInstanceWithManagedDocument:manageDocument];
After adding a few entities I execute flowing fetch request
NSFetchRequest *requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:#"AppCalendarEntity"];
NSArray *result = [managedDocument.managedObjectContext executeFetchRequest:requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist error:&InternalError] ;
It returns me the result including only the entities I have added in context using first command and NOT the entries already saved in database. I have made sure that at this stage the document state is UIDocumentStateNormal.
When I add this line to already open document (UIDocumentStateNormal) it returns me the expected result, i.e. it fetch results from db as well as memory context which has not yet been saved to db.
[managedDocument openWithCompletionHandler:^(BOOL success)
{
NSFetchRequest *requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:#"AppCalendarEntity"];
NSArray *result = [managedDocument.managedObjectContext executeFetchRequest:requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist error:&InternalError] ;
}
My question is
1- I expect that the result of query should be the same in both cases. Why it is not so in the above case.
2- To me if document state is UIDocumentStateNormal I should not be calling "openWithCompletionHandler" in context to open the document. In this particular scenario what difference it is making in NSFetchRequest which gives me the desired result after adding this.
Please let me know if I'm getting wrong
Here is the complete code
This is the complete code of the function
+ (void ) saveCalendarArrayInDbIfItAlreadyDoesNotExist : (NSArray*) appCalendarArray managedDocument: (UIManagedDocument*) managedDocument completionBlock : ( void(^) (NSArray* ObjectSavedSuccesfully, NSError *InternalError)) handler
{
// i dont know why i have to do it :( if i dont add openWithCompletionHandler my query doesnt fetch result from db rather just do query in-memory context and not db
[managedDocument openWithCompletionHandler:^(BOOL success)
{
void (^completionHandler)(NSArray* , NSError* );
completionHandler = [handler copy ];
NSError *error = nil;
NSMutableArray *array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for (id appCalendar in appCalendarArray) {
if([appCalendar isKindOfClass:[AppCalendarEntity class]])
{
AppCalendarEntity *appCalendarEntity = (AppCalendarEntity*) appCalendar;
NSFetchRequest *requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:#"MyEntity"];
requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist.predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"identifier = %#", appCalendarEntity.identifier];
NSError *InternalError = nil;
[requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist setShouldRefreshRefetchedObjects:YES];
NSArray *result = [managedDocument.managedObjectContext executeFetchRequest:requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist error:&InternalError] ;
// "result" is different when we encapsulate it in openWithCompletionHandler and when we don't…….MY PROBLEM
if(result == nil)
{
// return error
}
// 1 object always return that depict the in memory(context) object we created but not saved. I expect it should be zero because no object has yet been saved to database..
else if(result.count > 1)
{
[managedDocument.managedObjectContext deleteObject:appCalendar];
}
else
{
[array addObject:appCalendarEntity];
}
}
else
{
// error handling
}
}
if (error != nil)
{
completionHandler (nil, error);
return;
}
// saving all the objects
[ managedDocument updateChangeCount:UIDocumentChangeDone ];
}

Answer 1

When using UIManagedDocument, you do not call save on the MOC because it implements auto-save. however, it needs to be told that an auto-save should take place at some point in the future.
Get rid of that call to openWithCompletionHandler in that function (I know it was just there for purposes of debugging this problem).
Replace
[managedDocument.managedObjectContext save:&InternalError ]
with
[managedDocument updateChangeCount:UIDocumentChangeDone];
This will notify the document that it can now be saved.
EDIT
First, I think you should get rid of the debugging hacks. You can add NSLog or NSAssert, but the rest of that stuff just makes it hard to tell why you want, and confuses the real issue.
Second, what is your real goal here? I can see the name of the method, and I can see the code, but they do not match.
There is so much "cruft" here, it is hard to understand your problem. I am going to repost your code, along with an edit to remove the "open" stuff, and annotate it with questions as code comments.
Hopefully, this change will help you solve your problem.
// First, the method name seems to indicate that some objects will be added
// to the database. however, the only database work in this method is removal.
// I don't get it.
+ (void ) saveCalendarArrayInDbIfItAlreadyDoesNotExist : (NSArray*) appCalendarArray managedDocument: (UIManagedDocument*) managedDocument
{
NSError *error = nil;
NSMutableArray *array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for (id appCalendar in appCalendarArray) {
if([appCalendar isKindOfClass:[AppCalendarEntity class]]) {
// OK, we are filtering the array of objects. We are only interested in
// objects of type AppCalendarEntity, and are going to use its identity
// property to look for objects of type MyEntity.
// What is the relationship between AppCalendarEntity and MyEntity?
AppCalendarEntity *appCalendarEntity = (AppCalendarEntity*) appCalendar;
NSFetchRequest *requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist = [NSFetchRequest fetchRequestWithEntityName:#"MyEntity"];
requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist.predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"identifier = %#", appCalendarEntity.identifier];
NSError *InternalError = nil;
[requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist setShouldRefreshRefetchedObjects:YES];
NSArray *result = [managedDocument.managedObjectContext executeFetchRequest:requestToSeeIfCalendarWithIdExist error:&InternalError];
// OK, now we just got a result from searching for a MyEntity, where
// its identifier is the same as the appCalendarEntity.
if(result == nil)
{
// return error
}
// 1 object always return that depict the in memory(context) object we created but not saved. I expect it should be zero because no object has yet been saved to database..
else if(result.count > 1)
{
// I am extremely confused by this code. First, why are you
// checking for more than 1 object? The method name indicates
// you are going to insert something. Furthermore, you are only
// deleting one object. How many do you expect? Also, why are
// you deleting an appCalendar? You were searching for a MyEntity.
// If an appCalendar is a MyEntity, then that's terrible naming.
// Furthermore, it would explain why you are finding it...
// because you create entities by inserting them in a MOC to
// begin with!
[managedDocument.managedObjectContext deleteObject:appCalendar];
}
else
{
// Even more confusion. You are adding this object to an internal
// array, not the database. Furthermore, you are doing it if there
// are either 0 or 1 MyEntity objects in the database with matching
// identifier.
[array addObject:appCalendarEntity];
}
}
}
// saving all the objects
// OK - but the only thing being saved are the ones you deleted...
[ managedDocument updateChangeCount:UIDocumentChangeDone ];
}
Finally, if my hunch is correct, and the calendar objects are actually MyEntity objects, they are already in the MOC - because that's how they get created. When you do a fetch, you can force the search to ignore pending changes (as noted in one of my previous comments) and only accept saved changes.
If you want to ignore pending changes,
fetchRequest.includesPendingChanges = NO;

Answer 2

#Jody Problem has been resolved and thank you for giving time to this question.
First let me address your confusions
1- Yes function is intended to save in the database and it is a helping function. The parameter "appCalendarArray" being passed to this function consist of entities that has already been created in context. I intentionally eliminated the logic since it involves communicating with external apis, parsing json etc etc. The code required for inserting entities in context has already been included in first part of the question.
AppCalendarEntity *appCalendar = [AppCalendarEntity getInstanceWithManagedDocument:manageDocument];
2- I eliminate the entities from context which has been constructed but not yet saved from context, based upon a column in database that should be unique. If we have identifier for object already in database, we do not want to resave it. So, I simply delete it from context. This function works as expected, entities are not re-saved in database. The last line do save the objects that are left in context if any. Most of the time there are a lot.
3- Sorry for mistyping AppCalendarEntity and MyEntity are the same.
Solution
I have added this flag fetchRequest.includesPendingChanges = NO; , delete db, restarted Xcode and it started working. Thank you for your persistence