My iPhone app uses a small database to store its settings and saved files. How can I ensure that the default database, with its default settings, gets distributed to anyone who downloads it along with the application files?
EDIT Sorry, I was in a rush when I posted this. I forgot to mention that the database needs to end up in the 'Documents' folder of the application so that it can be backed up at a later date by the user.
-Ash
Put it in "Resources". Then on your first launch, you'll need to load that file out of your mainBundle and save it to the Documents directory. The file will "come with" the app, but it won't live in the right place to get caught by backup.
A side-effect is that restoring the app to factory settings is as easy as deleting that file. Next launch, you can see you don't have your file, and copy a fresh one out of your bundle.
You include it as a file in the Resources folder of your application.
Related
I have an app in appstore now im going to push out an update of app, Im having a custom Plist file with set of values in my application bundle, and these values are been modified from the version which is in production and in addition even more key value pairs are added in to this file.
Now my doubt is on updating this app to appStore will the update process automatically overrides(updates) my new plist file on top of existing one or do we need to do some work around like how we do for database changes like coredata migration and all?
As explained here: iOS App Programming Guide, this is what happens when you update an app:
Files Saved During App Updates
When a user downloads an app update,
iTunes installs the update in a new app directory. It then moves the
user’s data files from the old installation over to the new app
directory before deleting the old installation. Files in the following
directories are guaranteed to be preserved during the update process:
Application_Home/Documents
Application_Home/Library
Although files
in other user directories may also be moved over, you should not rely
on them being present after an update.
This means that all the resources that were in your bundle will be "lost" and you will have the new ones from your new bundle. If you were using this plist file for read only purposes this won't be a problem, if you were saving some user preference on this file, i'm afraid that these user information will be lost. You should save this kind of data in the documents directory, always!
When the update is deployed it will overwrite existing plist files.
When you update your app on App store it replaces new binary with old binary. So with binary it also replaces your plist too. So don't worry about that, just be aware that your info in app store details and details in plist should be same otherwise it will not take your binary file for app version update.
I have a Webservice to download some News and write them into a plist-file somewhere in NSLibraryDirectory, thats fine. But if the user has no Internet connection or the webservice is offline or whatever, I load a Default-Newsfile from within the AppBundle.
At the moment I have to replace the Default-File manually before every AppStoreUpdate to keep it up to date.
My Question: Is there an easy way to write into the App Bundle while debugging via Simulator, so the Default-File will everytime be up to date.
I tought about something like:
#ifdef SIMULATOR
//Write to AppBundle
#endif
Note:
It's all about the time while I use the Mac and the Simulator, I don't want to do that in the Published App!
Yes, I already replace the Ressource in my Bundle, but by hand and I want it to realize automatically.
I want to keep my Projectfolder up to date, before I compile it for any Device or the AppStore.
AppBundle is Read-only you cannot write anything to it programmatically, however if you update the resources in your Project through Xcode, you get the updated file automatically in the AppBundle..
Ok, based on your comment, here's what you need (I think - still not completely clear on the question, but let me know if this works for you).
Create an empty file (say news.plist) in your project folder (SRCROOT). Add this to your repo.
Add this file in your project's resources and add it in Copy Bundle Resources step in Build Phases
When you download content from internet, save it to project's temporary folder, then copy it to SRCROOT/news.plist overwriting existing file (optionally add a check on file checksum to avoid unnecessary change). This step is required ONLY when running on simulator.
Whenever developers check-in, the updated news.plist should be checked in to the repo.
To make SRCROOT available in code, add SRCROOT=\"${SRCROOT}\" to GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS.
Other developer won't need to do anything except the last step - check in the updated file every time it changes.
Does this help?
No, you might be possible to get the simulator to write to you App Bundle, but this does not mean that the file your project (the one that gets compiled when you build for the app store) will be updated.
Why not just save the new to the documents directory, then always load this file. After the app is started, start a background thread and try to update the plist file. Of you are successful in retrieving the news over the write the plist file in the document directory.
This way the user will have an file that was retrieved the last time the device was able to get the file.
You could add an file in the app bundle which you copy to the documents directory on first start of the application, just to make sure that the user has data in the app.
Here is a situation I have a data file in document directory which is being updated in the application every now and then. So I want to save it to my desktop using iTunes. But I don't want that the file should be uploaded back to my application. i.e. I want that user can download the file but can not upload any.
I was thinking to have the data file on some other location like Library and put a button on application settings saying "Prepare backup" that will copy that data file in Document directory, from where user can download it. If user uploads any thing it won't make any difference as my current file is in Library directory.
This is just a thought,
can anyone suggest me other way or the above way is good to go?
Edit: I just need that after the successful export user can view the data file (may be later) without support of the application.
You can't.
But what you can do is check (using an timer every 10 seconds) if a new file is added to the documents directory and then delete it programmatically.
But this ofcourse doesn't disable the replacement of files.
I have an .xml file that is going to be shipped within my app.
This file contains values that are read from it and saved as an array when the app launches.
Each time the app is run, I want to check with the server if there is an internet connection. If so, I want to get the newest version of the .xml file from the server and replace the one that I currently have saved in my app (this way, the next time the user logs in and doesn't have internet access, he/she will be able to use the old (yet most up to date) data).
What is the best way to do this?
Thanks,
The best way to probably do this is to copy the XML file from the app bundle to a location in the app's sandbox, e.g. the Documents folder. Thereafter you can update the XML content as necessary with newer data from the server. The copy is necessary to allow you to write to the file, since you cannot change the content of your app's bundle because it is signed.
Alternatively, if the data is simple enough, you can just save it to user defaults on first launch and change the defaults on subsequent updates
I might skip the XML altogether, unless it contains a baseline of default settings, and just sync user defaults over the Internet. You can't modify files in the bundle, so your only option would be to copy over a "default-settings" XML file to the application's Documents folder to make it editable.
I want to know when we install an application where does the database of the application resides. Like Does it resides in the application bundle or sandbox.
Also when we upgrade it why does not it affects the existing database. For example, if I make some changes to database table and reinstall it, it still uses the previous table. So how does it actually works at the background.
You choose the location by providing a path to a db file when you call sqlite3_open. The path should almost certainly be to a file in your Documents directory, since any place else either won't be backed up (tmp) or won't be accessible (the app bundle, or paths outside your sandbox).
Since you manage the file, you could also create a .db file on your computer with the default database contents, put that in your app bundle, and then copy it over to Documents the first time your app comes up and finds no file in the expected location.