QueryKit

QueryKit, a simple type-safe Core Data query language.

Usage

To get the most out of QueryKit, and to get full type-safe queries, you may add extensions for your Core Data models providing properties which describe your models. You may use querykit-cli to generate these automatically.

An extension for our a Person model might look as follows:

extension User {
  static var name:Attribute<String> { return Attribute("name") }
  static var age:Attribute<Int> { return Attribute("age") }
}

This provides static properties on our User model which represent each property on our Core Data model, these may be used to construct predicates and sort descriptors with compile time safety, without stringly typing them into your application.

let namePredicate = Person.name == "Kyle"
let agePredicate = Person.age > 25
let ageSortDescriptor = Person.age.descending()

QuerySet

A QuerySet represents a collection of objects from your Core Data Store. It may have zero, one or many filters. Filters narrow down the query results based on the given parameters.

Retrieving all objects

let queryset = Person.queryset(context)

Retrieving specific objects with filters

You may filter a QuerySet using the filter and exclude methods, which accept a closure passing the model type allowing you to access the type-safe attributes.

The filter and exclude methods return brand new QuerySet's including your filter.

queryset.filter { $0.name == "Kyle" }
queryset.exclude { $0.age > 25 }

You may also use standard NSPredicate if you want to construct complicated queries or do not wish to use the type-safe properties.

queryset.filter(NSPredicate(format: "name == '%@'", "Kyle"))
queryset.exclude(NSPredicate(format: "age > 25"))

Chaining filters

The result of refining a QuerySet is itself a QuerySet, so it’s possible to chain refinements together. For example:

queryset.filter { $0.name == "Kyle" }
       .exclude { $0.age < 25 }
        .filter { $0.isEmployed }

Each time you refine a QuerySet, you get a brand-new QuerySet that is in no way bound to the previous QuerySet. Each refinement creates a separate and distinct QuerySet that may be stored, used and reused.

QuerySets are lazy

A QuerySet is lazy, creating a QuerySet doesn’t involve querying Core Data. QueryKit won’t actually execute the query until the QuerySet is evaluated.

Ordering

You may order a QuerySet's results by using the orderBy function which accepts a closure passing the model type, and expects a sort descriptor in return.

queryset.orderBy { $0.name.ascending() }

You may also pass in an NSSortDescriptor if you would rather.

queryset.orderBy(Person.name.ascending())
queryset.orderBy(NSSortDescriptor(key: "name", ascending: true))

Slicing

Using slicing, a QuerySet's results may be limited to a specified range. For example, to get the first 5 items in our QuerySet:

queryset[0..5]

NOTE: Remember, QuerySets are lazily evaluated. Slicing doesn’t evaluate the query.

Fetching

Multiple objects

You may convert a QuerySet to an array using the array() function. For example:

for person in try! queryset.array() {
  println("Hello \(person.name).")
}

First object

let kyle = try? queryset.first()

Last object

let kyle = try? queryset.last()

Object at index

let katie = try? queryset.object(3)

Count

let numberOfPeople = try? queryset.count()

Deleting

This method immediately deletes the objects in your queryset and returns a count or an error if the operation failed.

let deleted = try? queryset.delete()

Attribute

The Attribute is a generic structure for creating predicates in a type-safe manner as shown at the start of the README.

let name = Attribute<String>("name")
let age = Attribute<Int>("age")

Operators

QueryKit provides custom operator functions allowing you to create predicates.

// Name is equal to Kyle
name == "Kyle"

// Name is either equal to Kyle or Katie
name << ["Kyle", "Katie"]

// Age is equal to 27
age == 27

// Age is more than or equal to 25
age >= 25

// Age is within the range 22 to 30.
age << (22...30)

The following types of comparisons are supported using Attribute:

Comparison	Meaning
==	x equals y
!=	x is not equal to y
<	x is less than y
<=	x is less than or equal to y
>	x is more than y
>=	x is more than or equal to y
~=	x is like y
~=	x is like y
<<	x IN y, where y is an array
<<	x BETWEEN y, where y is a range

Predicate extensions

QueryKit provides the !, && and || operators for joining multiple predicates together.

// Persons name is Kyle or Katie
Person.name == "Kyle" || Person.name == "Katie"

// Persons age is more than 25 and their name is Kyle
Person.age >= 25 && Person.name == "Kyle"

// Persons name is not Kyle
!(Person.name == "Kyle")

Installation

CocoaPods is the recommended way to add QueryKit to your project, you may also use Carthage.

pod 'QueryKit'

License

QueryKit is released under the BSD license. See LICENSE.

Nagle / QueryKit