How to locally save objects?

Question

How would I go about locally saving variables so that I can access them each time an application is run? An example would be saving high scores for a game or settings for an app. The application needs to be able to access the variables each time it runs and the memory shouldn't be released. Should I use the NSUserDefaults class or are there other options?

Related: [Working with data in iOS Apps](http://stackoverflow.com/q/10244782/335858). — Sergey Kalinichenko, Jul 22 '13 at 17:11
NSUserDefaults would do it for you. If the data to be saved is huge, than use Core Data. — Puneet Sharma, Jul 22 '13 at 17:11

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 22 '13 at 17:18

1

For big amounts of data or data stored like a database (for example, related data), use CoreData.

For small objects, use NSUserDefaults.

answered Jul 22 '13 at 17:18

Antonio MG

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I would add that for medium size data (NSdictionary will a bunch of keys), you can use NSKeyedArchieve. Simple to use without all the pain of CoreData. – John Jul 22 '13 at 19:26

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 22 '13 at 17:27

For small amounts of data, such as simply storing numbers as a high score, NSUserDefaults should be enough. Here's some code to get you started:

//Save High Scores
NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:3];
array[0] = highScore1;
array[1] = highScore2;
array[2] = highScore3;
NSUserDefaults *prefs = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
[prefs setObject:array forKey:@"highScores"];

//load high scores
NSUserDefaults *prefs = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSArray *array  = [prefs objectForKey:@"highScores"];
HighScore1Label.text = array[0];
//etc

How to locally save objects?

2 Answers2