Using Spotlight as the "database" of an application
- by vicvicvic
I'm developing an OS X application to organize "things" (as iTunes is to music and iPhoto to photos). Instead of having my own database and index, I'm considering using Spotlight to essentially serve this purpose.
Has anyone tried this? Is it wise?
The main benefit, as I see it, would be simplicity and avoiding redundancy. It seems a bit wasteful to implement my own index machinery when OS X comes with one built in.
I have little experience working with Spotlight, however. From a user's perspective, I do know that it has been slow and imprecise in older versions of OS X. I also have a gut-feeling that since it's aimed at searching the whole filesystem, using it for "local" purposes becomes hackish.
Obviously, my applications's index needs to constantly be up-to-date. Can mdimport be used for this?
