Is it possible to fetch only selected property in a Core Data query

In other words I would like to make "SELECT name, id FROM TAB_NAME" query, not "SELECT * FROM TAB_NAME" query.

The answer to this question was accepted, but FYI, here's how to fetch only specific properties of an entity with Core Data, without re-factoring your model:

// build your NSFetchRequest// ...[request setResultType:NSDictionaryResultType];[request setPropertiesToFetch:  [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"property1", @"property2", /* etc. */ nil]];    

See also the documentation for NSFetchRequest.

I think in this case you might want to keep the larger fields (the ones you'd rather not load) on a separate entity, and just create a 1:1 relationship for that. That way, even if you fault your object, you'll only be fetching the "lighter" attributes, and to fetch the heavier ones you'd use the relationship.

Core Data already does "lazy loading" in the form of faulting: faults only pull data from the store when you need it, which reduces memory and performance overhead. Also read the Core Data Performance documentation for more information:

A BLOB often represents an attribute of an entity—for example, a photograph might be an attribute of an Employee entity. For small to modest sized BLOBs (and CLOBs), you should create a separate entity for the data and create a to-one relationship in place of the attribute. For example, you might create Employee and Photograph entities with a one-to-one relationship between them, where the relationship from Employee to Photograph replaces the Employee's photograph attribute. This pattern maximizes the benefits of object faulting (see “Faulting and Uniquing”). Any given photograph is only retrieved if it is actually needed (if the relationship is traversed).