How do you go about creating files at arbitrary locations given you have the absolute path? I want to create a file in some arbitrary location /Users/me/random/project3/<moreStuffInThePath. How would I go about doing this?
To create a directory I would do:
try FileManager.default.createDirectory(atPath: "/Users/me/random/project3/<directoryName>"
This worked fine for directories.
However the counterpart for creating files does not work:
FileManager.default.createFile(atPath: "Users/me/random/project3/something.txt", contents: someString.data(using: .utf8)) // always returns false
I have checked out other stack overflow threads on creating files. Everything I found was about creating files in the .documentDirectory or it was outdated.
Eg: How to create text file for writing
Create empty file swift
Read and write a String from text file
TLDR: How do I create text files/files with random extensions at arbitrary locations on the pc given I have the absolute path?
I would also be grateful if someone could explain why all tutorials available on this matter are about the document directory. Why is it so significant?
Thank you!
This is most likely because your app is sandboxed.
Go to your project settings, select the macOS target and go to "Signing and Capabilities". You should see something like this:
If your app needs to create files in arbitrary locations, you must remove the app sandbox by clicking on the "x" on the top right. Note that this will cause your app to be rejected from the Mac App Store.
If you want to upload your app to the Mac App Store, then you must keep the sandbox, and write to "user selected locations" only. Select "Read/Write" rather than "Read Only" next to "User Selected File". (Although it says "File", this includes directories too) This allows you to write to locations chosen by a user using something like an NSSavePanel.
Related
I'm asking this question because I did not find any answer, and I'm starting to believe that it's not possible, due to security reasons. But who knows?
In my app, I simply let the user save a PDF file using UIActivityViewController. The user then chooses Save to file, then selects iCloud Drive.
Now, users ask me to be able to select a default location once and for all.
Is it possible? This location would of course be outside the app container, then I suppose iOS won't grant access unless the user selected it itself.
Yes you can. Using UIDocumentPickerViewController you can ask for a directory, and you can save it in your app. This is explained in detail in Providing Access to Directories. iOS 13 and later.
See also What's New in File Management and Quick Look for sample code saving a directory URL and then reusing it to set the base directory for a subsequent call to UIDocumentPickerViewController
I'm building a mac-app for people to organise files. One of the things I allow people to do is to move or copy files to specific directories from within my app. I use FileManagers 'moveItem(at:to:)' or 'copyItem(atPath:toPath:)' to do so, which also allows me to catch errors. Based on these errors, I can of course create custom alerts for specific edge cases.
However, since Finder already provides alerts for such occasions, I was wondering if I could prompt Finders default alerts instead of having to re-create them.
I'm especially interested in the alert shown when multiple files already exist at the location the user tries to move/copy files to and Finder allows to 'Keep both', 'Stop' or 'Replace' these files. Because this alert also includes a 'Apply to all'-checkbox unusual place for a custom NSAlert.
Thanks!
You can use apple script to move file.
tell application "Finder"
move POSIX file "/Users/xyz/fileName" to POSIX file "/Users/xyz/test"
end tell
This will display finder alert.
i make a localized iphone application and in run time i want to modify the property list, so i at the first run of the application i copied the plist file but i don't sure if the copy operation also copied the localized version which the system store in a folder like: lp.fr
my quetion is: what i must do for the system to recognise the two files? should i make two directory in documents folder like lp.en and lp.fr and copy the two files?
also also xcode make the two plist with the same name, how i can determine every version and copy it?
i am waiting for some one to direct me to write way.
thanks
Take a look at NSBundle's pathForResource:ofType. It clearly states that it will return a non localized file if it exists or else pick a file in the order of user's language preferences. As you wan't to copy a localized resource, don't create a non localized copy and this will return the path for the most suitable resource. You can just copy that file and make changes to it.
If you are interested in getting the path to a resource of a specific language, take a look at pathForResource:ofType:inDirectory:forLocalization.
I'm looking for a good way to manage many image files in my app.
When the number of images to maintain gets large, it seems vital to have a directory structure to hold them.(to organize images and to support duplicate image names)
Since normal way of storing images in documents directory(by adding images to xcode's resource folder) doesn't seem to support directory structure,
I probably need to use something called bundle.
Here are questions.
It's not clear to me what's the difference between "documents
directory" and "bundle". Are they
just names to specify directory path
inside an iphone application? Since
documents directory doesn't support
directory structure, I guess it's not
a regular file path in iOS? (I'm
looking for a definition or overview
description on those two terms enough
to help answering the following
questions)
How do I create a tree structure directory to store resources?
How do I add files to the created directory?
What is the step (probably in xcode) to add new files to the
directory as project grows? note:
question 3 deals with initial set up,
4 deals with update.
What happens to files under documents directory and bundle when
user updates the app? Since many
applications store user data
somewhere, there must be a way of
updating an app without wiping out the
saved user data. ie. How does
"documents directory" and "bundle"
behave in update situation?
So called "resource bundle" refers to the "bundle" used in above
questions?
Thank you.
Your app is a "bundle". It's represented by an NSBundle object. On iOS, this is the only bundle you are allowed to use; you can't create another bundle and import it into your app.
However, you can add a subdirectory to your app's bundle. In Xcode 4, select your project in the navigator and click on the Build Phases tab. Add a new build phase (bottom right), Copy Files. Move it up just below Copy Bundle Resources, and rename it something meaningful ("copy interface images", or something). You'll notice you've got a Subpath field there - that's your directory in your bundle. Drag the files you want in that subdirectory on to this build phase, and then you can access them through the normal methods in NSBundle, UIImage, NSData and so on.
Wish it was easier? Me too.
i want to use the "file sharing" feature in my app. I want to create a photo-app which has no content when the user starts it. Therefore the user can select an image-folder on his mac or pc. After that and starting the app on his iphone or ipad, all the content of his image-folder will be viewable.
I think its only possible to add simple files to my app - not content folders, right?
Any ideas how i could do this?
Thanks for your time and help.
On your mac, rename the folder to folder.pkg.
You can now add folder.pkg to the documents for your app using iTunes File Sharing.
Once folder.pkg has been added, rename it to its original name.
Not sure how to do this with iTunes on a PC.
You cannot upload folder to the app.
one way to do so
create .zip file of that folder and upload.
extract that zip file from app.
checkout this project, It has a code to extract zip file.
https://github.com/ZipArchive/ZipArchive
I found that using iTunes 12, and iOS8, I can now ADD folders to an apps Documents folder using iTunes File Sharing. Previously it was only possible to add single files.
It is indeed possible to add a folder to and App's File Sharing space using iTunes version 12+. However, the iTunes upload button will not work for this, because its file selection interface insists on plain file selection only, excluding folders. The way which works is to drag-and-drop a folder from your PC to the iTunes File Sharing window.
Since the iTunes interface for handling file sharing is very poorly designed, is is worth recalling the tricks that you can use to perform operations on the File Sharing space, that iTunes does not provide a button for:
Rename a file or folder: click it once, wait for a couple of seconds, and click it again. This will replace the name with the renaming edit box
Delete a file or folder: select it, then hit the "Del" key on your keyboard
Upload a folder: drag-and-drop it from your computer copy
It remains impossible to directly see or alter the contents of a File Sharing folder in iTunes. My workaround for doing this is the following:
Download the folder to the computer
Make any desired change to the folder tree on the computer copy
Delete the File Sharing copy of the folder (or, optionally, rename it to something like folder.old for safety)
Upload the modified folder from the computer, using drag-and-drop
(optionally) Delete the safety copy in File Sharing, after verifying that the App works fine with the newly uploaded version of the folder
I hope this helps
I was not able to drag-and-drop a folder from my PC (Windows 10). But I found a free application called iFunbox that allowed me to copy a folder to an application's documents.