using nested fast enumeration takes too long, how to optimize?

Question

I am doing this is soon as the app starts, luckily I have to do it only once in a singleton class called CMIDataManager, my app is taking too long to launch.

The plist contains:

Commanders.plist:

German - Array

Soviet - Array

each commander array has 19 commander and each commander has 5 abilities (mapping through a unique ability uid).

Abilities.plist:

GermanAbilities - Array

SovietAbilities - Array

Each array contains 40 abilities with a uid (used for mapping commanders to abilities)

At the start, I need to make a model class, so I iterate commander's abilities uid against each Ability hid, once a match is found I add the ability model object to Commaders model object.

How can I do it faster? Would using block based enumeration speed it up? How can I use it?

-(void)loadCommandersAndAbilities{

#pragma German Abilities iteration

NSString* abilitiesPlistPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Abilities" ofType:@"plist"];

NSDictionary *dictionary = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:abilitiesPlistPath];


NSArray *tempArray = [dictionary objectForKey:@"GermanAbilities"];

NSArray *tempArray2 = [dictionary objectForKey:@"SovietAbilities"];


NSMutableArray *tempAbilitiesArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:tempArray.count];

for (NSDictionary *dict in tempArray) {
    Ability *ability = [[Ability alloc] init];

    [ability populateWithDictionary:dict];

    [tempAbilitiesArray addObject:ability];

    NSLog(@"Adding object %@ to temp abilities",ability.name);

}

self.germanAbilitiesArray = [NSArray arrayWithArray:tempAbilitiesArray];

[tempAbilitiesArray removeAllObjects];


#pragma Soviet abilities iteration

for (NSDictionary *dict in tempArray2) {
    Ability *ability = [[Ability alloc] init];

    [ability populateWithDictionary:dict];

    [tempAbilitiesArray addObject:ability];

}

self.sovietAbilitiesArray = [NSArray arrayWithArray:tempAbilitiesArray];



#pragma German commander itertation


NSString* commandersPlistPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Commanders" ofType:@"plist"];


dictionary = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:commandersPlistPath];

tempArray = [dictionary objectForKey:@"German"];

tempArray2 = [dictionary objectForKey:@"Soviet"];

NSLog(@"Temp German commadner array is %@", tempArray);

NSLog(@"Temp Soviet commadner array is %@", tempArray2);


NSMutableArray *tempCommandersArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:tempArray.count];

NSMutableArray *tempCommandersArray2 = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:tempArray2.count];


for (NSDictionary *dict in tempArray) {
    Commander *commander = [[Commander alloc] init];

    [commander populateWithDictionary:dict];

    for (NSNumber *uid in commander.abilitiesUIDArray) {

        NSLog(@"uid %@", uid);
        for (Ability *ability in self.germanAbilitiesArray) {

            NSLog(@"ability uid is : %@, target uid %@ ",ability.uid, uid);
            if ([ability.uid isEqualToNumber: uid]) {


                NSLog(@"Adding abilty %@ to commander %@: ",ability.name, commander.name);


                [commander.abilitiesArray addObject:ability];


                NSLog(@"Current commander abilty array is  %@: ",commander.abilitiesArray);

            }


        }
    }

    [tempCommandersArray addObject:commander];

}


self.germanCommandersArray = [NSArray arrayWithArray:tempCommandersArray];

NSLog(@"Final german Commaders %@",self.germanCommandersArray);



#pragma Soviet commander itertation


for (NSDictionary *dict in tempArray2) {
    Commander *commander = [[Commander alloc] init];

    [commander populateWithDictionary:dict];

    for (NSNumber *uid in commander.abilitiesUIDArray) {

        NSLog(@"uid %@", uid);
        for (Ability *ability in self.sovietAbilitiesArray) {

            NSLog(@"ability uid is : %@, target uid %@ ",ability.uid, uid);
            if ([ability.uid isEqualToNumber: uid]) {


                NSLog(@"Adding abilty %@ to commander %@: ",ability.name, commander.name);


                [commander.abilitiesArray addObject:ability];


                NSLog(@"Current commander abilty array is  %@: ",commander.abilitiesArray);

            }


        }
    }

    [tempCommandersArray2 addObject:commander];

}


self.sovietCommandersArray = [NSArray arrayWithArray:tempCommandersArray2];

NSLog(@"Final Soviet Commaders %@",self.germanCommandersArray);




}

Adding images:

Answer 1

seems like the issues was in this loop:

        if ([ability.uid isEqualToNumber: uid]) {

                [commander.abilitiesArray addObject:ability];

}

once i have find a match for commander's ability in the list of all abilities, I don't need to check for that ability to match with rest of the abilities, so I added a break statement.

            if ([ability.uid isEqualToNumber: uid]) {


                //NSLog(@"Adding abilty %@ to commander %@: ",ability.name, commander.name);


                [commander.abilitiesArray addObject:ability];


                //NSLog(@"Current commander abilty array is  %@: ",commander.abilitiesArray);
                break;
            }

I also added this to the code to make it run on background thread, bringing the launch time down from 6 s to .5 second.

-(instancetype)init {

self = [super init];

if(self) {

    [self performSelectorInBackground:@selector(loadCommandersAndAbilities) withObject:nil];

    //[self loadCommandersAndAbilities];

   // NSOperationQueue
}

return self;
}

loadCommandersAndAbilities: is the method listed in the original question, I also added notifications to let my view controller know when the method has finished.

//end of loadCommandersAndAbilities

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"TableViewDataDownloaded" object:nil];

Answer 2

The obvious thing is that your abilities array shouldn't be an array but a dictionary. That way you don't compare the uid with the uid of every ability, but look it up in a single operation.