I am making an Iphone drinking card game app.
All the card mean something different and i want the user to be able to press an info button and then show a new screen with information about the current card. How can i make a document to load text from instead of using a bunch og long strings?
Thanks
You could look into plist files - they can be loaded quite easily into the various collection objects and edited with the plist editor in Xcode.
For instance, if you organize your data as a dictionary, the convenience constructor
+ (id)dictionaryWithContentsOfURL:(NSURL *)aURL
from NSDictionary would provide you with as many easily accessible strings as you need.
This method is useful if you consider your strings primarily data as opposed to UI elements.
Update:
As #Alex Nichol suggested, here is how you can do it in practice:
To create a plist file:
In your Xcode project, for instance in the Supporting Files group, select New File > Resource > Property List
You can save the file in en.lproj, to aid in localization
In the Property list editing pane, select Add Row (or just hit return)
Enter a key name (for instance user1) and a value (for instance "Joe")
To read the contents:
NSURL *plistURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:#"Property List" withExtension:#"plist"];
NSLog(#"URL: %#", plistURL);
NSDictionary *strings = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfURL:plistURL];
NSString *user1 = [strings objectForKey:#"user1"];
NSLog(#"User 1: %#", user1);
A plist, a JSON string, and an SQLite database walked into a bar ...
Oops!! I mean those are the three most obvious alternatives. The JSON string is probably the easiest to create and "transport", though it's most practical to load the entire thing into an NSDictionary and/or NSArray, vs read from the file as each string is accessed.
The SQLite DB is the most general, and most speed/storage efficient for a very large number (thousands) of strings, but it takes some effort to set it up.
In my other answer, I suggest the use of a dictionary if your texts are mostly to be considered as data. However, if your strings are UI elements (alert texts, window titles, etc.) you might want to look into strings files and NSBundle's support for them.
Strings files are ideally suited for localization, the format is explained here.
To read them into you app, use something like this:
NSString *text1 = NSLocalizedStringFromTable(#"TEXT1", #"myStringsFile", #"Comment");
If you call your file Localizable.strings, you can even use a simpler form:
NSString *str1 = NSLocalizedString(#"String1", #"Comment on String1");
A useful discussion here - a bit old, but still useful.
Related
I want to parse CSV data, which is downloaded to the app. Right now I have the following data - "SPY",186.33,"3/17/2014","4:00pm",**+1.67**,185.59,186.77,185.51,93784328. I used NSLog to display it on the console. What I want to do is read the 1.67 (or whatever it may be) and turn it into an NSString. The url where I get the information from will be consistent, but the numbers will change day to day. Thanks in advance!
If you're able to capture the row of data as a string (which it sounds like you've done, since you're able to NSLog it to the console), then you should be able to split the string apart like so:
NSArray *stringComponents = [yourDataRow componentsSeparatedByString:#","];
NSString *desiredComponent = [stringComponents objectAtIndex:4];
Then, your +1.67 (or whatever) will be available as desiredComponent.
Note: This solution assumes that the +1.67 component of the row will always occupy the 5th position in the row.
I use CHCSVParser by Dave DeLong, it supports parsing this format from a file, NSString, or NSInputStream. Probably your best bet! https://github.com/davedelong/CHCSVParser
My application contains 8 TextFields. When I click the submit button I want to save all the values from the TextFields into an XML file (and generate a XML file if required). How can I do this?
Another XML writer which will get the job done is XSWI (shameless plug - I wrote that code).
There are many ways you could do this. One quick and dirty way of doing it is to generate a string in your code and insert the values
e.g.
NSString *myXML = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"<myxml><value1>%#</value1><value2>%#</value2></myxml>", textfield1, textfield2];
Then open a file and write myXML to it.
Not very elegant, but it depends on what exactly you want.
Do you need the XML file to be in a specific format? If not the easiest way is to save it as a plist (a type of xml file) by putting your strings into an array and then saving the array as a plist using
NSArray *array = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:label1.text, label2.text, label3.text, etc, nil];
[array writeToFile:fileName atomically:YES];
The nice thing about the plist is that you can easily load the string again by calling:
NSArray *array = [NSArray arrayWithContentsOfFile:filename];
If you need your XML in a different format from what the plist produces, the easiest way is probably just to build the XML yourself using string concatenation, e.g.
NSString *xml = [NSSString stringWithFormat:#"<root><label>%#</label><label>%#</label><label>%#</label>etc</root>", label1.text, label2.text, label3.text, etc];
You can use GDATAXML to read and write XML to file.
Refer this link to see how its done.
http://www.raywenderlich.com/725/how-to-read-and-write-xml-documents-with-gdataxml
I'm trying to create a user editable plist where the user can store a custom created workout routine including strings referenced from another data.plist in the app bundle.
I'm assuming NSCoding is the best way to go about this. So far I have the interface setup as a nav bar and table view.
I want it to be blank be default and the user has to press the "+" that is in the top right of the nav bar. Then he could enter a name for an entry in an array, for example chest day, or bicep day. And within that array, will be a dictionary or another array of strings of the particular exercises for that day, for example bench press, or bicep curl.
This plist needs to be editable so it will be going in the users document folder and not in the app bundle.
Example:
Top array consists of Chest Day, Back Day, Leg Day. Within Chest Day dictionary, include bench press, chest pull, pushup, etc.
Update:
Adding this method to search for routine file;
-(void)loadData
{
if(YES)
{
NSString* documentsPath = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0];
NSString* routineFile = [documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"routine.plist"];
BOOL fileExists = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:routineFile];
}
else
{
//load file
}
}
NSCoding is the protocol used by NSArchiver, NSKeyedArchiver, etc., not for serializing an array into a property list.
Forget about the idea that the user is going to edit a property list. The user is going to edit data in your app -- the fact that it's stored as a property list is just an implementation detail. When your app starts, you read the data stored in the data file. The user edits it, looks at it, whatever. At some point later, perhaps after each edit, perhaps just before the app quits, you write the data back out to the file. Since it's a property list, don't worry about updating the file; you already have all the data, so write a whole new property list and then use that file to replace the old one.
Perhaps I'm wrong and you really do intend for the user to edit the property list by hand, with a text editor. This would be a mistake. It's great the property lists are human readable, but asking your users to edit your raw data files by hand is a strong indication that your app is broken. The whole purpose of your app is to keep track of this information for the user; if they wanted to use a text editor to manage it, they wouldn't need your app. So, with that said, I hope I'm not wrong. ;-)
I don't think I'd use NSCoding for this - if all you're working with is standard plist objects like NSArray, NSDictionary, and NSString, the top array's -writeToFile:atomically: method is an easy way to do the job.
What's the best way to create a binary plist on the iPhone with simple string based key/value pairs? I need to create a plist with a list of recipe and ingredients. I then want to be able to read this into an NSDictionary so I can do something like
NSString *ingredients = [recipes objectForKey:#"apple pie"];
I'm reading in an XML data file through an HTTP request and want to parse all of the key value pairs into the plist. The XML might look something like:
<recipes>
<recipe>
<name>apple pie</name>
<ingredients>apples and pie</ingredients>
</recipe>
<recipe>
<name>cereal</name>
<ingredients>milk and some other ingredients</ingredients>
</recipe>
</recipes>
Ideally, I'll be able to write this to a plist at runtime, and then be able to read it and turn it into an NSDictionary later at runtime as well.
Creating a Property List in Objective-C
This contains information for creating a property list file using either CoreFoundation or Cocoa.
For your specific case, look at the interface for NSDictionary and use:
- (BOOL)writeToFile:(NSString *)path atomically:(BOOL)useAuxiliaryFile;
+ (id)dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:(NSString *)path;
If you only need one fairly small dictionary, you could also try NSUserDefaults.
- (void)setObject:(id)value forKey:(NSString *)defaultName;
- (NSDictionary *)dictionaryForKey:(NSString *)defaultName;
First off, I'm a complete beginner.
That said, I thought an ambitious longer-term project/learning experience would be to create an app that displayed daily quotes, like those cheesy day-by-day calendars our grandmothers have in their bathrooms. I want it to have two per day, each one represented by a tab in a UISegmentedControl. That's the long term. Right now I'd be happy with getting a single day's worth of quotes functioning.
Onto the questions:
How can I get text saved in a .txt or .rtf file to be displayed in a UITextView? Preferably without using 'stringWithContentsOfFile,' since Xcode is telling me that's deprecated.
How can I get content from a different file (or maybe a different portion of the same file...?) to be displayed when the user taps the second segment?
If I can get it running so that those two conditions are met and I understand what's going on, I'll consider the day a success. Thanks!
1.
NSError *error = nil;
NSStringEncoding stringEncoding;
NSString *fileText = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:#"/path" usedEncoding:&stringEncoding error:&error];
myTextView.text = fileText;
The error and encoding are optional, and you can pass in nil for both. But if you care about the error, or what encoding the file was in they will have useful info in them after the string is created.
2.
Set the valueChanged outlet in Interface Builder to an IBAction on your controller, such as setSegmentValue:. Then, assuming you have an array of quote strings:
- (IBAction)setSegmentValue:(id)sender {
UISegmentedControl *control = (UISegmentedControl*)sender;
NSString *quote = [quotes objectAtIndex:control.selectedSegmentIndex];
myTextView.text = quote;
}
Even though stringWithContentsOfFile: is deprecated, stringWithContentsOfFile:usedEncoding:error: is not. That is the standard method to use for reading from files.
As for the second question, you simply test the state of the segmented control and perform as action based on it. Admittedly this is a high level answer but should get you going.