How to create a persistant iphone cache

So I have been doing lots of reading and found out NSCache is not persistent which is a slight problem for what I need to do. I have heard that I will need to use Core data instead... but I don't have any experience with core data so am wondering if its the only solution for persistent data.

The app will allow the user to search through a catalog, by typing in a search parameter in the code and select a distributor for their search parameter. What I want to do when the a开发者_JAVA技巧pp loads is download the list of distributors and save them to a "cache" the will be persistent (till when the header I will make at some point changes and demands the app to update the cache), so that if the user turns the app of or the phone next time then open it the manufacture.

Now that I'm getting abit deeper into my app I'm getting abit lost in things for instance how would setting up a cache work with regards to NSURLConnection.

Any suggestions or code examples would be greatly appreciated..

This previous answer of mine might help you decide.

To sum it up:

1. If your data is small, static and low-complexity, use a collection class and write it to disk using the built-in class methods
2. If the data is static, low-complexity but large, SQL may be a good solution especially if you already know it.
3. If the data is dynamic and complex regardless of size, then Core Data is your best choice.

Viewed purely from the technical perspective, Core Data is always the best choice for iOS/MacOS API apps. Core Data is not just a persistence API, it is an API for creating the model layer of the Model-View-Controller design paradigm that the Apple API uses. It not only persist the data, but models it, validates its and provides an easy interface to the rest of the API.

If your going to be writing iOS apps, you need to eventually learn Core Data. However, it does have a learning curve and you should pick the method right now that will let you ship a usable app.

You can also check out sqlite. Here's another question that discusses getting started with sqlite on the phone: Where's the best SQLite 3 tutorial for iPhone-SDK?

The advantage to sqlite is that it is fairly easy to pick up. The downside is that you have to write queries for everything, and that can be a pain. It doesn't save objects, just data, numbers or text.