Recipe Manager with CoreData Persistence

Project roadmap

1. 01

   Design the Core Data model

   ~1.5h

   Create an app with Core Data. In the model editor, add a Recipe entity (id, title, notes, servings, prep minutes, steps text, isFavorite, createdAt, photo as Binary Data with Allows External Storage) and an Ingredient entity (name, quantity, unit, position), with a one-to-many relationship whose delete rule is Cascade. Create a PersistenceController, with an in-memory version for previews and tests. Done when: the app starts and the model loads.

2. 02

   Build the list and detail screens

   ~2h

   Show recipes with @FetchRequest sorted by title, each row with a small photo, the title and a heart for favorites. Tapping opens a detail screen showing the photo, servings, ingredients in order, and the steps as a numbered list. Swiping deletes a recipe. Add a few sample recipes for previews. Done when: recipes show in the list and their details open.

3. 03

   Build the add and edit form

   ~2.5h

   Create one form for adding and editing: title (required), servings, prep time, steps, an editable list of ingredients (add, remove and reorder) and a photo chosen with PhotosPicker. Shrink the photo before saving it, for example to a maximum width of 1200 pixels as JPEG. Edit in a child context (or a copy of the data), so Cancel discards changes. Done when: recipes can be created and edited, and Cancel changes nothing.

4. 04

   Add search and favorites

   ~1.5h

   Add a search field with .searchable and a Favorites only toggle. Toggle the heart from the list and the detail screen, saving immediately. Done when: search and the favorites filter narrow the list correctly, and favorites persist after restarting.

5. 05

   Filter with predicates

   ~1.5h

   Make search and filtering happen in Core Data by changing the fetch request's predicate: title CONTAINS[cd] the search text, or ANY ingredients.name CONTAINS[cd] the text, combined with isFavorite == YES when the toggle is on, using NSCompoundPredicate. Done when: searching for an ingredient finds the recipes that use it, and search ignores case and accents.

6. 06

   Write Core Data tests

   ~1.5h

   Write XCTest tests with the in-memory store: creating a recipe with ingredients, deleting a recipe also deletes its ingredients, the search predicate matches by title and ingredient, and the favorites filter works. Done when: all tests pass.

Resources

• DocsCore Data documentation
• DocsNSPredicate documentation
• DocsFetchRequest in SwiftUI
• DocsPhotosPicker documentation
• ArticleHacking with Swift: Core Data