SWIFT writing to plist is not updating - swift

Question

I'm trying to write to the plist and I'm using two approaches but none of them work for me.
I'm not getting any errors though and when I print the paths I can see that plist exist, however you can see from the screenshot that the plist it is not getting updated/populated.
let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "Employee", ofType: "plist")!
let data : NSDictionary =
["A": [["userid":"1","username":"AAA","usergroupid":"2"], ["userid":"33","username":"ABB","usergroupid":"8"]],
"B": [["userid":"2","username":"BBB","usergroupid":"8"], ["userid":"43","username":"ABC","usergroupid":"8"]] ]
//first approach
let favoritesDictionary = NSDictionary(object: data, forKey: ("Favorites" as NSString?)!)
print(path)
let succeeded = favoritesDictionary.write(toFile: path, atomically: true)
//second approach
let bundlePath = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "Employee", ofType: "plist")!
print(bundlePath)
let dictionary = NSMutableDictionary(contentsOfFile: bundlePath)
dictionary?.setObject(data, forKey: ("Locations" as NSString?)!)
dictionary?.write(toFile: bundlePath, atomically: true)
Can someone please help?

Answer 1

This is a short tutorial.
Create your plist file and put it in the application bundle.
In AppDelegate create a computed property to get the current Documents folder and append the file path
var employeePlistURL : URL {
let documentsFolderURL = FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)[0]
return documentsFolderURL.appendingPathComponent("Employee.plist")
}
In AppDelegate applicationWillFinishLaunching register a key-value pair for the firstLaunch flag in UserDefaults and copy the plist into the documents folder if the flag is true
func applicationWillFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {
let defaults = UserDefaults.standard
defaults.register(defaults: ["firstLaunch":true])
if defaults.bool(forKey: "firstLaunch") {
let sourceFile = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "Employee", withExtension: "plist")!
try? FileManager.default.copyItem(at: sourceFile, to: employeePlistURL)
defaults.set(false, forKey: "firstLaunch")
}
}
Wherever you need to read and write the property list create also the computed property and add a property for the dictionary
var employees = [String:Any]()
and two methods to load and save the data
func loadEmployees() {
do {
let data = try Data(contentsOf: employeePlistURL)
guard let plist = try PropertyListSerialization.propertyList(from: data, format: nil) as? [String:Any] else { return }
employees = plist
} catch { print(error) }
}
func saveEmployees() {
do {
let data = try PropertyListSerialization.data(fromPropertyList: employees, format: .binary, options: 0)
try data.write(to: employeePlistURL)
} catch { print(error) }
}
A better way is to use structs and PropertyListEncoder/-Decoder but as the literal dictionary and the screenshot in the question are rather different I provide the common Dictionary / PropertyListSerialization way.