I'm kind of new to ios developing and was wondering could I navigate through my own application with NSFileManager.
I have a folder inside my application and would like to see what files are in it and don't want to use hardcoded file names.
Sounds like you need to get to know NSFileManager's contentsOfDirectoryAtPath: error: method (documentation linked for you).
To look within your own application bundle, pass a path of "[[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath]". This would give you a path to the "Resources" folder within your application bundle. If you look at the linked documentation, you'll see NSBundle provides a few other potential ways to get paths to interesting locations within your application package.
Related
I have an iPhone app that programmatically gets a path to the Application Support Folder, tests for a file in the application support folder, and then either loads the file or creates a new one depending on the result. This is easy and there are a ton of tutorials on how to do this.
But I can't for the life of me find anything in the ios documentation or online about how to put a file in the Application Support Folder before ever building the app. I tried creating a Library/Application Support in my apps Xcode folder to no avail.
Specifically, I am making a game, and I want to include level packs in the game's Library/Application Support folder BEFORE I build and run the application. Preferably by dragging and dropping the files in Finder. Is this possible?
#Vimal Venugopalan
EDIT:
As Vimal mentioned, I could use [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:ofType:inDirectory:] method, but this gives a path similar to "~/MyApp.app/MyFolder/MyFile.plist". That is if "~" was the path to the app's home directory. Or more specifically "~" is the path returned by calling the NSHomeDirectory(); function. Where I want to put my files is in "~/Library/Application Support/MyFolder/MyFile.plist"
I want the files in this spot because I want to incorporate level-packs into my game. I want to include some level packs with the app download, and I would eventually like to have additional downloadable level-packs. Now the downloaded level packs definitely have to go in the "~/Library/Application Support/" folder (which I know how to do programmatically), so I would like to include the original level-packs in the same place before building and running the app. It would be so much simpler to have all my level-packs in one place!
You can add these files in the Project and access these files at runtime Xcode will copy them in the Copy Bundle Resource phase. This normally copies into the root of the bundle. To deal with directories see #CocoaFu's answer to this SO question.
Then in the code
NSBundle* bundle = [NSBundle mainBundle] will give you the main bundle
From this you look in directories using pathForResource:ofType:inDirectory: e.g.
NSString* path = [bundle pathForResource:#"file.xml"
ofType:nil
inDirectory:#"a"];
The methods are given in NSBundle class reference also see the Bundle Programming guide
Hope this solves your issue. If not please comment
I've implemented a bit of functionality that uploads a file created within the app to an FTP location, however the 'pathForResource' returns an error where it cannot find the filepath for the resource.
This is the code i'm using:
SCRFTPRequest *ftpRequest = [[SCRFTPRequest alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:#"ftp://79.170.44.42"]
toUploadFile:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:self.htmlFilePath ofType:#"text/html"]];
I've been able to upload files that are packaged with my app, for example, files that are standard 'info.plist etc'. How would I be able to specify the location of a file that is created within the app? Do I need to give a full resource path instead of just referencing the object?
[[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource] will only work for files that you added to the XCode Project. You need to look for the file right where you stored it when it was created.
I'm creating one iphone application that uses and xml to get some data from and a few images. Lets say that originally these files will be in the application bundle. But then I want to make my application to get updates from a web service. So lets say I download a new xml and new Images.
Where do I save them? I think I will be able to save them in the application "cache" right?
But then How do I make my application check if this resource exists in the cache, then load that one...else load the one in the application bundle?
iOS to be used 4.3 but if it makes it easier we can go to 5.
You will have to use NSFileManager to save the file to and load it from the document directory. Check out the following link, which actually contains all the info you need:
http://www.friendlydeveloper.com/2010/02/using-nsfilemanager-to-save-an-image-to-or-loadremove-an-image-from-documents-directory-coding/
If [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:fullPath]; (fullPath being the NSString with contains the path to your image in your document directory) returns nil, then the image is not present, so you'll have to load the default image from your bundle.
You can access your default bundle files using [[NSBundle mainbundle] pathForResource:#"yourFileNameHere" ofType:#"yourTypeHere"] This will return the path to your file in your bundle and you can just pass it to [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:]
This example only applies to UIImage, but you can easily adapt it to use other classes. I think the UIImage example is enough for illustrative purposes though.
You'll probably want to create a versioning scheme. After the app starts (or periodically) call the web service for a very cheap call to ask what version it has. You'll know what version you have (write in a plist or have the version number in the folder structure). Another options is pushing a notification.
The next thing you'll have to think about is how the app reacts to getting a new data set. You could do it only on start up but that might block the start up experience if you're bounding it to a web call. The other option is to allow the dataset to change while the app is open. You could have a model that uses NSNotificationCenter to notify your views and controllers that the data has changed. I would probably version the storage as well (folder per) to help with the transition.
As for how, you can make web requests with something like ASIHttpRequest, NSFileManager to write to the documents directory, and plists to save settings like version.
How can we make a nested directory in resource folder to put the xmls with same name for different folders.And how we can read it using path in iphone app programatically?
Actually i want to make like resource>a>b>some.xml
again in resource like resource>f>g>some.xml
and so on...how ever both xml is containing different data in it.and also tell me the way how we can read it in iphone application.
You cannot use the same filename, even if they resides in different folders.
Instead, as a workaround, you can name the files like:
a_b_some.xml
f_g_some.xml
you can create a folder structure on your system and then directly add the folder to your XCode Project under resources by drag-drop.
this folder must display in BLUE color (physical grouping in folder on disk) rather than YELLOW (logical grouping in project only) just like native folders on mac. like this you can put same file in different folder hierarchy without any problems.
you need to create a absolute path to your file whenever you want its access your file [NSBundle pathForResource:] will not work in this case as it does not have access to your custom folder hierarchy.
best of luck.
During development, I'd like to have an XML file in my iPhone app's Documents directory when it starts. Is this possible? Having read this answer, I tried adding a Run Script build phase, but I can't find an environment variable that points to the application's home directory after installation. To be clear, the directory I want to move the file to is here, in the case of a Simulator:
/Volumes/Stuff/Users/johnDoe/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/User/Applications/118086A0-FAAF-4CD4-9A0F-CD5E8D287270/Documents
Or here, in the case of a device:
/var/mobile/Applications/30B51836-D2DD-43AA-BCB4-9D4DADFED6A2/Documents
It won't do just to copy the file there manually, because I want to send the source code to someone else so they can see it, and I don't want them to have to do any set-up before they can run it. If what I'm asking isn't possible, then I'll look at ways to move the file programmatically after the app has launched, but I thought I'd check with you guys for a neater way first.
Do you need to have the file in the Documents directory, or do you just need to have access to it from within the app? In Xcode your current target should have a "Copy Bundle Resources" build phase. Add your .xml file to this build phase and you'll be able to access the file at any point in your code with the following call:
[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"my_file" ofType:#"xml"]