Overwriting a plist file with content of a NSMutableArray (first item is always NULL in plist) - iphone

Question

I am trying to use plist files to save a list of items from a text
file from a web site. When I first create the plist file and add
items to that, there is no problem. But when I try to remove an item
from plist, it is not removing the index, it only overwrites the
content of this index with NULL. And I tried an other way; I tried to
create a new array without the item I want to remove, and overwrite
plist file with the content of this new array. In this way, the item
I wanted to remove is removed, but surprisingly the first item gets
NULL! A more surprising situation is, I also write it to a new plist
file with same technique, and it is perferct! This is a very
primitive code, unfortunately it didn't worked for me. I searched
plenty of tutorials, but I couldn't overcome. How can I write the
content of a string array to a plist file without extra null objects
and without loosing datas?
========================================================================
I composed a sample code below :
- (IBAction)logFromPlist{
NSMutableArray *arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"]];
NSLog(#"LOG:");
NSLog(#"arrplist count : %d", [arr count]);
for(int a=0; a<[arr count]; a++){
NSLog(#"*** %#", [arr objectAtIndex:a]);
}
}
- (IBAction)logFromPlist2{
NSMutableArray *arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data3.plist"]];
NSLog(#"LOG:");
NSLog(#"arrplist count : %d", [arr count]);
for(int a=0; a<[arr count]; a++){
NSLog(#"*** %#", [arr objectAtIndex:a]);
}
}
- (IBAction)addValue{
NSString *deger = [field5 text]; //New value text field in IB
NSMutableArray *arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"]];
if(arr == NULL){
arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
}
[arr addObject:deger];
[arr writeToFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"] atomically:NO];
}
- (IBAction)removeFromPlist{
NSMutableArray *arr2 = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"]];
if(arr2 != NULL){
NSMutableArray *arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
NSString *key = [field8 text];
for(int i = 0; i < [arr2 count]; i++){
NSString *cntStr = [[NSNumber numberWithInt:i] stringValue];
if(![cntStr isEqualToString:key]){
NSString *tempDeger = [arr2 objectAtIndex:i];
if(tempDeger != NULL){
[arr addObject:tempDeger];
}else{
NSLog(#"it is NULL");
}
}
}
NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
[fileManager removeItemAtPath:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"] error:nil]; //I tried this line by removing next line
[arr writeToFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"] atomically:NO]; //It is writing the array to plist but first item is always null
[arr writeToFile:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data3.plist"] atomically:NO]; //same technique but everything is ok in this plist
[fileManager copyItemAtPath:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data3.plist"] toPath:[NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Documents/data2.plist"] error:nil]; // trying to copy correct plist file (data3.plist) to original plist file (plist2), but it does not fix the problem.
}
}
Project file : http://www.ozgunbursalioglu.com/files/plistWork.zip

Answer 1

At least your copyItemAtPath: will always fail since it won't overwrite files (data2.plist already exists).

Answer 2

Try to write your file by setting the automatically to YES
[arr writeToFile:PATH atomically:YES];
And also try to check the BOOL value returned to see if your oerration done successfully