I would like to create my own data format for an iPhone app. The files should be similar structured as e.g. Apple's iWork files (.pages). That means, I have a folder with some files in it:
The file 'Juicy.fruit' contains:
Fruits
---> Apple.xml
---> Banana.xml
---> Pear.xml
---> PreviewPicture.png
This folder "Fruits" should be packed in a handy file 'Juicy.fruit'. Compression isn't necessary. How could I achieve this? I've discovered some open source ZIP-libraries. However, I would like to to build my own data format with the iPhones built-in libs (if possible).
Best regards,
Stefan
Okay, so there are three ways I am reading your question, here's my best guess on each one:
You want your .fruit files to be associated with your app via Safari/SMS/some network connection (aka when someone wants to download files made for your app or made by your app).
In this case, you can register a protocol for your app, as discussed here:
iPhone file extension app association
You want the iPhone to globally associate .fruit files with your app, in which case you want to look into Uniform Type Identifiers. Basically, you set up this association in your installer's info.plst file.
You want to know how you can go from having a folder with files in it to that folder being a single file (package) with your .fruit extension.
If that's the case, there are many options out there and I don't see a purpose in rolling your own. Both Microsoft and Adobe simply use a standard zip compression method and use their own extension (instead of .zip). If you drop any office 2007 document, such as docx or Adobe's experimental .pdfxml file into an archive utility (I like 7z, but any descent one will do), you will get a folder with several xml files, just like you're describing for your situation. (This is also how Java's jar file type works, fyi). So unless you have a great reason to avoid standard compression methods (I vote gzip), I would follow the industry lead on this one.
I can definitly appreciate the urge to go DIY at every level possible, but you're basically asking (if it's #3) how you can create your own packaging algorithm, and after reading how some of the most basic compression methods work, I would leave that one alone. Plus I really doubt that Apple has built in libraries for doing something that most people will just use standard methods for.
One last note:
If you are really gunning to do it from scratch (still suggest not), since your files are all XML, you could just create a new XML file that will act as a wrapper of sorts, and have each file go into that wrapper file. But this would be really redundant when it came time to unwrap, as it would have to load the whole file every time. But it would be something like:
Juicy.fruit --
<fruit-wrapper>
<fruit>
<apple>
... content from apple.xml
</apple>
</fruit>
<fruit>
<banana>
... content from banana.xml
</banana>
</fruit>
<fruit>
<pear>
... content from pear.xml
</pear>
</fruit>
<picture>
...URL-encoded binary of preview picture
</picture>
</fruit-wrapper>
But with this idea, you either have to choose to unpack it, and thus risk losing track of the files, overwriting some but not all, etc etc, or you always treat it like one big file, in which case, unlike with archives, you have to load all of the data each time to pull anything out, instead of just pulling the file you want from the archive.
But it could work, if you're determined.
Also, if you are interested, there is a transfer protocol intended specifically for XML over mobile called WBXML (Wap Binary XML). Not sure if it is still taken seriously, but if there is an iPhone library for it, you should research it.
Related
This may be a foolish question but I would appreciate any pointers: I'm generating year-long .Ics files that contain unique information people are actually purchasing - Moon phases, tides, etc.
The files work fine but I would like to try and 'lock' them so that the usual suspects cannot simply, download,rename and distribute the unique content to their advantage.
Does anyone know if anything like this exists? I've tried locking the file as text and but it doesn't stick once it's resaved as ics.
any recommendations for saving four strings into an own file format that is read by the application and can be shared?
In my app, you will be able to enter some text in some boxes and the app shows a view with an background image and those strings. Now, I am already able to save this as a picture, but I actually want to save it to an own file format so that you can save different files that can be modified afterwards as well or even exchanged via email and opened from another iphone with the app.
Now, I wrote the code for accessing the documents folder of the app, as well as saving and deleting. Thing is, i dont know how to store those strings in a file (perhaps in a xml?) and read them easily afterwards from my application.
For the exchanging part, I found that link which would be a nice feature indeed: http://iosdevelopertips.com/cocoa/launching-your-own-application-via-a-custom-url-scheme.html
Parsing xml seems not that difficult (never done it before): http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad-App-Dev/a/How-To-Parse-Xml-Files-In-Xcode-Objective-C.htm
If it's only a small bit of infomation then the easiest way to store your data in a file would be using a plist - there's a good tutorial here - http://www.icodeblog.com/2009/02/14/loading-data-from-plist-files/
In addition to the plist, you could also do the following approaches:
1) simplest - open a file in your documents directory, write the 4 strings (using whatever delimiter/end of string marker is useful - carriage return?) and overwrite them each time through. (i.e. it's your file, you can format it how you like)
2) mildly harder - use Apple's NSArchive to pack and unpack the strings.
3) possible overkill - store them directly in a SQLite database
4) major overkill - store them in CoreData.
Of course, the "overkill" options also provide you with extra features which may be of use if your app functionality extends beyond what you've outlined.
By sharing, I would think that simple copy and paste might be enough, but there's also sending it via email, or tripping another app's URL scheme to make it open it and sending the strings as part of the URL. You'd have to know that the other app would be able to interpret your strings as part of the URL, so you might have to write it yourself.
Okay guys I found that very nice method in the NSString documentation:
–writeToFile:atomically:encoding:error:
I think I am gonna separate my strings by /n and save them to a .txt. When I am gonna read the file afterwards, i am getting the string, divide it to substrings. That will do it, I guess.
One last question: Is it possible to replace the content of my file so that I won't need to create a new file every time i want to change something?
Thanks!
I am new to iphone sdk and creating my first application so please be nice when answering my questions.
I have following questions
Q-1. I have created a simple iphone application (not a game app, no OPenGL). My program is running fine but total xcode project size is 9 mb. I found that my xcode project size is less than 2 mb without "class" and "build" folder.
Do we upload files of "build" and "class" folder when we submit our application?
I have checked that most of iphone applications are less than 2 mb in size so I think build folder is just for me to test the application.
Can someone give me the list of all files or folders (just extension) that we need to upload in order to submit an iphone application.
Q-2. there are around 72 text files (each is 2 KB in size) in my program. Program open a text file according the selected criteria. I have all 72 text files in resource folder. I am not using SQLite as I think it is not too much data and text files are small in size.
Can apple reject my application just because there 72 text files? Is it a common approach to use multiple text files instead of SQLite?
Q-3. Do I need to add zip and unzip my text files instead of opening them directly?
Q-4. some of my text files has following five words
"sex" "sexy" "kinky" "filthy" "dirty"
For example "You are so kinky" , "I love sex" etc.
Do I need to remove these words from my files? Will they be considered vulgar? Will my application be rejected because of these five words?
I have seen some iphone applications on apple's website which shows sex positions and use words like sex,sexy,kinky so I think it should not be a problem.
Do I need to add something like "mature content. Must be 18 years old" just because I am using these five words. I think these are pretty common words that are frequently used by young people.
Many of these questions can be answered more completely by Apple's help docs in the iOS developer center and iOS Provisioning Portal (https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action and https://developer.apple.com/ios/manage/distribution/index.action - you need to be logged in to view these links)
However, here are some quick answers:
1) The build and classes folder hold files during development. The build folder holds the binaries that are created every time you click 'Build' in Xcode, if you build for different targets, there will be multiple copies of your binary in this folder. It also contains various debugging and symbol files used by Xcode.
The classes folder contains all of the implementation (.m) and header files (.h) that you have in your project. This folder corresponds to the 'Classes' group in the file organizer when you open your project in Xcode.
When you submit an application to Apple, all you submit is the compiled binary (found in the appropriate folder in your 'build' folder). It is normal for your project folder to be many times bigger than the final binary you submit. For more info on the submission process, refer to the second link I posted above.
2) If you're persisting a lot of data, I would recommend using the built in SQLite database. It's very easy to use (Google will help you with this), and quite fast. Apple probably won't reject your app for storing a lot of data in flat text files, but you have no reason to. SQLite databases are much cleaner and easier to maintain than 72 flat files.
3) No. But you should still use SQLite, especially if you're saving enough data to these text files that they need to be compressed. Reading and parsing large text files can be much slower and more cumbersome than reading the same data from a database (databases are made to handle data storage like this).
4) Again, Apple probably won't reject you for this (of course, nobody actually knows why they reject apps, so it's always a bit of a crap shoot). When you submit your app, you can choose the rating level for it (sort of like game ratings, or movie ratings) so when people download it they are aware of the level of maturity of the content. One of the ratings is 17+, which you can use if you need. I believe Apple has a document outlining it's rating system in one of the links I posted above (or it's somewhere, it does exist).
First of all you don't need to upload build folder to upload but classes will be uploaded. you have to follow a process for uploading.
No problem at all you can upload even 1000 files, 72 is very small amount. but be careful that if you project is very heavy then it app will be crashed.
No need to zip the files.
you may use all of these words you may even use pornographic contents but they should not be copy righted of any body else. You don't need to remove them, when you will be uploading your application there will be an option "Application include adult contents" you just have to check that option.
Sweet..I bought myself a 1TB portable harddrives this week. Don't you just love how much data you could store on one of these disks? The fact that I could store my bluray rips on to my portable harddisk and that my lg lcd tv can do HD rips right from the drive - that's amazing practicality right there! However, life it seems, is never so simple. I have 100s of movies unorganized in one huge folder, which is exactly what I needed to annoy myself while browsing the same on my tv to play a single movie. That got me thinking...
What if I had an automated way to organize movies into folders such that my folder-browsing-on-a-lcd-tv-or-a-comp would make my life a little easy?
I started thinking about this... I browsed a little in this context and I realized that if only I could "tag my movies somehow and create folders on-the-fly based on tags using hardlinks", I would have addressed my problem. I googled a bit to find software that works in the above fashion, only to find none.
A few more days of serious thought (as you know by now.. I think a lot.. and I guess this question is starting to sound like a blog rant/post of sorts...), in the interest of humanity, I thought I should come up with a generic way to address this: What if someone wanted to organize photos... organize music.. organize software?!
Turned my grey cells off for a while and here is an approach I came up with to solving my what-if scenario.
Tag / Group tag individual files (rely on a slick GUI to do it fast and do it good) - Adobe Flex/Eclipse RCP to do this?
Create hardlinks to each of the tagged files.
The first point is self-explanatory. The second (coz I am talking windows here), refers to making use of mklink.exe.
Consider a scenario where I have 2 movie files: I have a movie file "Transformers.avi" tagged as "english, action, bluray, sci-fi, imdb-top-50, must-watch-with-kids" and another movie file "The Specialist.avi" tagged as "english, bluray, thriller, adult". Here are a few of the possible locations I want to see my Transformers to be found:
[root directory]->all-tags->english
[root directory]->all-tags->bluray
[root directory]->all-tags->english->all-tags->bluray
[root directory]->all-tags->bluray->all-tags->action
[root direcotry]->all-tags->english->all-tags->action->bluray->all-tags->imdb-top-50
Given that windows has a limit of 1024 hardlinks to a single file, I probably would be allowed 7 unique tags per file. Each sub-folder will have an "all-tags" folder. Having it named "all-tags" makes it more accessible when order by name.
I believe this approach when automated to let you configure tags you want and where the hardlinks are created for you, helps you organize stuff effectively.
I don't know if there are better things out there. I would like your inputs on this approach and other possible ideas. I would like to gather inputs here and release something to sourceforge for everyone to use in a couple of weeks. I am sure, I can count on your positive response as always.
I believe hardlinks are not a good approach. Reason? A standalone player won't play them, and I wouldn't like a program who's made for tagging to tell me to stop making so many tags because of a Windows limitation on hardlinks (remembering each tag will increment the number of links exponentially).
Plus, "help" is not a good tag.
And I've had an idea once that I'm still planning to make some day to sort my own files - put the files in a big storage each below a GUID foldername (filename untouched) and store metadata in a sqlite database to be used by a smart file browser.
I was considering doing something similar to this with music for detecting duplicate songs and auto-organize funcationality.
For your application, I wouldn't recommend using any shell programs through Java. Exception handling becomes difficult, and your application becomes bound by the shell interface and implementation (i.e. windows versions or installations affect your application behavior).
I would use a database with a few tables: Files, Tags, and an association table.
The Files table would list the physical location of each file, the filename, and a unique identifier. This way, you can maintain information about each file without having to modify it for every tag association.
The Tags table would list each tag, and any metadata you want to store for each tag.
A third table, maybe 'FileTags' would store the assocation between tags and files. When adding tags to the stack, you would add a statement to the WHERE clause, and the list of files with all of the tags would be returned. This structure would also allow open your codebase up to other designs, such as include/exclude (autocomplete with X buttons), or possibly search.
If implemented in Java, your app would be platform independent, and would allow a very large number of tags and files. You can then use the system default application for opening the media file, and the user can make the selection in their native OS.
Reiser4?
...
(I mean nevermind Hans, but the tech...)
[disclaimer: Not a hacker. I know nothing of programming/coding, never mind filesystems & databases. I can barely code decent HTML even, if at all. Hey y'all! :D]
[footnote: does plain HTML5 work here? Too lazy to close my tags hehe :p]
Right, this is the problem I have a container (rar,zip) which contains images png's tiffs bmps or jpegs in an order.
The file extension isnt zip or rar though but uses the same compression.
I want to pull out a list of images contained within the file in the numerical order, then depending on the user decision go to the image selected.
I'm not after any code just the high level thought process/logic of how this can be achieved and how it could be achieved on iphone OS.
From what i know of iphone OS it uses a kind of sandbox environment so how would this effect the process as well.
Thanks
You can include the libz framework in your project and write some C to manage zipped data. Or you can use Objective-C wrapper classes others have written.
Your application resides in its own sandbox. You can include zip files in the "bundle", i.e. add them to your project, and copy them to the application's Documents folder to work with them. Or you can copy archived data over the network to the application's Documents folder if you don't want to include files in your project.
I don't think the extension matters so much as the data being in the format you expect it to be.
Everything I wrote above is for zip-ped files. If you're working with rar-formatted archives, you'll need to look at making a static library for the iPhone, perhaps from the UnRAR source code.