Fetching Entities

Basic Finding

Most methods in MagicalRecord return an NSArray of results.

As an example, if you have an entity named Person related to a Department entity (as seen in many of Apple’s Core Data examples), you can retrieve all of the Person entities from your persistent store using the following method:

NSArray *people = [Person MR_findAll];

To return the same entities sorted by a specific attribute:

NSArray *peopleSorted = [Person MR_findAllSortedBy:@"LastName"
                                     ascending:YES];

To return the entities sorted by multiple attributes:

NSArray *peopleSorted = [Person MR_findAllSortedBy:@"LastName,FirstName"
                                     ascending:YES];

To return the results sorted by multiple attributes with different values. If you don’t provide a value for any attribute, it will default to whatever you’ve set in your model:

NSArray *peopleSorted = [Person MR_findAllSortedBy:@"LastName:NO,FirstName"
                                         ascending:YES];

// OR

NSArray *peopleSorted = [Person MR_findAllSortedBy:@"LastName,FirstName:YES"
                                         ascending:NO];

If you have a unique way of retrieving a single object from your data store (such as an identifier attribute), you can use the following method:

Person *person = [Person MR_findFirstByAttribute:@"FirstName"
                                   withValue:@"Forrest"];

Advanced Finding

If you want to be more specific with your search, you can use a predicate:

NSPredicate *peopleFilter = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"Department IN %@", @[dept1, dept2]];
NSArray *people = [Person MR_findAllWithPredicate:peopleFilter];

Returning an NSFetchRequest

NSPredicate *peopleFilter = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"Department IN %@", departments];
NSFetchRequest *people = [Person MR_requestAllWithPredicate:peopleFilter];

For each of these single line calls, an NSFetchRequest and NSSortDescriptors for any sorting criteria are created.

Customizing the Request

NSPredicate *peopleFilter = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"Department IN %@", departments];

NSFetchRequest *peopleRequest = [Person MR_requestAllWithPredicate:peopleFilter];
[peopleRequest setReturnsDistinctResults:NO];
[peopleRequest setReturnPropertiesNamed:@[@"FirstName", @"LastName"]];

NSArray *people = [Person MR_executeFetchRequest:peopleRequest];

Find the number of entities

You can also perform a count of all entities of a specific type in your persistent store:

NSNumber *count = [Person MR_numberOfEntities];

Or, if you’re looking for a count of entities based on a predicate or some filter:

NSNumber *count = [Person MR_numberOfEntitiesWithPredicate:...];

There are also complementary methods which return NSUInteger rather than NSNumber instances:

+ (NSUInteger) MR_countOfEntities;
+ (NSUInteger) MR_countOfEntitiesWithContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *)context;
+ (NSUInteger) MR_countOfEntitiesWithPredicate:(NSPredicate *)searchFilter;
+ (NSUInteger) MR_countOfEntitiesWithPredicate:(NSPredicate *)searchFilter
                                     inContext:(NSManagedObjectContext *)context;

Aggregate Operations

NSNumber *totalCalories = [CTFoodDiaryEntry MR_aggregateOperation:@"sum:"
                                                      onAttribute:@"calories"
                                                    withPredicate:predicate];

NSNumber *mostCalories  = [CTFoodDiaryEntry MR_aggregateOperation:@"max:"
                                                      onAttribute:@"calories"
                                                    withPredicate:predicate];

NSArray *caloriesByMonth = [CTFoodDiaryEntry MR_aggregateOperation:@"sum:"
                                                       onAttribute:@"calories"
                                                     withPredicate:predicate
                                                           groupBy:@"month"];

Finding entities in a specific context

All find, fetch, and request methods have an inContext: method parameter that allows you to specify which managed object context you’d like to query:

NSArray *peopleFromAnotherContext = [Person MR_findAllInContext:someOtherContext];

Person *personFromContext = [Person MR_findFirstByAttribute:@"lastName"
                                                  withValue:@"Gump"
                                                  inContext:someOtherContext];

NSUInteger count = [Person MR_numberOfEntitiesWithContext:someOtherContext];