NOOB Question Apologies. (Large Lists of data)

Solar2D iOS
#1

I am creating an app for friend and essentially I want them to be able to type in a food, when found tells them nutrition information.

I plan to include as many food as possible so would I have to code all the different types of foods in my main.lua with the outcomes or is there some sort of database trick I can do?

Apreicate any help or input in advance.

Thanks

#2

Depending on the number  and size of records, you may not want to keep it all in memory.  This is where a database comes in handy.  Corona SDK supports SQLite for things like this.

Another option if you have network connectivity is to use a remote database.  The benefit here is you can add more data to it without having to release a new app.  There might already be online nutrition databases that provide access through an API to access their data.

Rob

#3

Thanks for your response. I thought it would include this.

Are there any tutorials or guides to set this sort of thing up?

In regards to a remote database I would need to host this somewhere. Are there companies out there that do this sort of hosting?

Thanks again

#4

Most web hosting services offer MySQL databases and PHP to access them.  I have an older tutorial on setting this up that might help you get started:   http://omnigeek.robmiracle.com/2012/04/15/using-corona-sdk-with-rest-api-services/

There are also services like Parse.com that offer database in the cloud services.  Several people on here have build mod_parse modules that you can use to bridge your Corona SDK app with Parse databases.  You will need to google for them though.

Rob

#5

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your reply. I think I want to create an Offline database first and then evolve from there.

What would you suggest the best method for this scenario?

#6

For offline databases, probably SQLite

#7

Depending on the number  and size of records, you may not want to keep it all in memory.  This is where a database comes in handy.  Corona SDK supports SQLite for things like this.

Another option if you have network connectivity is to use a remote database.  The benefit here is you can add more data to it without having to release a new app.  There might already be online nutrition databases that provide access through an API to access their data.

Rob

#8

Thanks for your response. I thought it would include this.

Are there any tutorials or guides to set this sort of thing up?

In regards to a remote database I would need to host this somewhere. Are there companies out there that do this sort of hosting?

Thanks again

#9

Most web hosting services offer MySQL databases and PHP to access them.  I have an older tutorial on setting this up that might help you get started:   http://omnigeek.robmiracle.com/2012/04/15/using-corona-sdk-with-rest-api-services/

There are also services like Parse.com that offer database in the cloud services.  Several people on here have build mod_parse modules that you can use to bridge your Corona SDK app with Parse databases.  You will need to google for them though.

Rob

#10

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your reply. I think I want to create an Offline database first and then evolve from there.

What would you suggest the best method for this scenario?

#11

For offline databases, probably SQLite