What is the basic file structure in an iOS application? - ios

I'm trying to load a plist file in my application with
NSBundle* bundle = [NSBundle mainBundle];
NSString* plistPath = [bundle pathForResource:#"CategoryData" ofType:#"plist"];
categoryProps = [[NSArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:plistPath];
but the categoryProps array always ends up with 0 objects. I've placed the CategoryData.plist file under the "Supporting Files" dir in my project but I can't figure out how files are arranged in the compiled app.
Can someone point me to docs that describe how the file system of an app is laid out and how to figure out where files are located within the file system?
I forgot to point out that I am using XCode 4 which does not create a resources folder for the project

Your loading code code should work for locating the file within the file system. In a project, I have:
NSString *data = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"data" ofType:#"plist"];
What I would do is log the plistPath to the console or inspect it in the debugger, then navigate to that location on disk and determine if the plist ends up where you think it does.
Also, locate your application bundle in /Users/<# Username #>/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/<# Unique Appname #>/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/<# Appname #>.app, right click on it and select "Show package Contents". Ensure that you see your plist where you think you should.

You need to place your plist file in the Resources folder. Then you will be able to load and use them like this
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSString *finalPath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"Info.plist"];
NSDictionary *plistData = [[NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:finalPath] retain];
UPD: In xcode4 you must to place plist files in the "Supporting Files" directory instead of "Resources". And try to use NSDictionary instead of NSArray

Related

Cannot get mainBundle resources (returns null)

I'm trying to access a resource file I added in the app using relative pathing. I've read that I was supposed to use something like this :
NSBundle *mainBundle = [NSBundle mainBundle];
NSString *filePath = [[mainBundle resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"myFile.txt"];
fh = [NSFileHandle fileHandleForReadingAtPath:resourcePath];
Except this isn't working. With NSLog, I am able to confirm mainBundle isn't null and resourcePath returns something like this:
/Users/tom/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXX/data/Containers/Bundle/Application/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXX/MyApp_Demo.app/myFile.txt
I've tried many things, such as adding the name of directory where the resource is located, that would be Ressources/myFile, but nothing is yielding any result.
I'm a total beginner with Objective-C but I have to tinker with legacy code and I have to deal with this, so any help is much appreciated.
Side note:
this is what the project structure looks like from Xcode:
Meanwhile, in Finder, the Ressources directory isn't inside the MyApp directory, rather they're on the same level inside the project directory. I wonder if that could be the problem.
Side note 2:
NSString *filePath2 = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"myFile" ofType:#"txt"];
returns (null) after logging in the console.
It is best to use a simulator for this debugging process
Verification
You should check if the file or Resources folder is actually being copied to the right location or not. If you have added the Resources folder, than check it with the below code
NSString *resourcesFolderPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Resources" ofType:nil];
NSString *fullFilePath = [NSString pathWithComponents:#[demoToursPath,"filename.txt"]];
NSFileManager *manager=[NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSLog(#"Filepath: %#", fullFilePath);
NSLog(#"File Exist: %#", [manager fileExistsAtPath:fullFilePath]);
Once you have confirmed this, you can update your code to match the location and path it needs to be in order to access the file.
Additional Debug
You can also just print the Document Directory for the application and open a finder window and navigate there to see if the Resources folder is added at the right place (if it was added)
NSString *documentDir = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES)objectAtIndex:0]
NSLog(#"Document Directory: %#", documentDir);
If you update the question with more info, I would be able to help you better

NSbundle pathforresource not finding file

I have images.xcassets listed ounder copy bundle resources, and I did try to just state the file name by itself: MSB_big_icon , before trying to add the path within images.xcassets.
Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong?
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource:#"/Raymio_android_images/MSB_big_icon.imageset/MSB_big_icon" ofType:#"png"];
NSLog(#"path: %#", path);
MSBIcon *tilecon = [MSBIcon iconWithUIImage:[UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:path] error:&error];
David Ansermot is right that xcassets is a much better approach and strongly preferred. If you can't use that (running on older versions of iOS for instance), still put everything in one directory and use imageNamed:. This has significant caching benefits over hand-loading the file.
An asset catalog (xcassets) is a (relatively) new, unified way of managing image resources. The images are no longer accessible as separate files on the disk. Instead, imageNamed: consults the asset catalog and fetches the correct asset.
Prior to asset catalogs (and still, for non-images), assets were stored in localized directories. All of your unlocalized assets would be put into a directory called Resources (no matter where those files might appear to be in your source tree, and no matter how those files might be arranged in your Xcode folders). Localized files would be stored in directories like English.lproj or French.lproj. When you make NSBundle calls to load MyImage, it looks at each localized directory in the order the user has configured, and if it cannot find it in any of those directories, it looks in Resources.
Now it is possible to store full directories as "a resource" by marking them as directory references in Xcode. In that case, the whole directory would be copied into Resources or the appropriate localized directory. In order to find files inside such a directory you can use the ...inDirectory: version of the NSBundle methods.
So most of the time, you want to just use imageNamed:, which is going to fetch things out of the asset catalog if available, and then search localized directories, and then look in Resources. If you need to find a non-image, or if for some reason you want the real path to the file, you can compute it like this:
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"MSB_big_icon" ofType:#"png"];
And if that resource were in a directory tree (because it was a directory reference in Xcode), you can access it like this:
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"MSB_big_icon"
ofType:#"png"
inDirectory:#"Raymio_android_images/MSB_big_icon.imageset"];
Here's a code exemple from one of my apps :
NSString *appKey = #"Applications__GENERIC";
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:appKey ofType:#"plist"];
appData = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:path];
The "Applications__GENERIC.plist" is stored like this :
Other solutions :
Use the images.xcassets.
Then in your code to load an image, use the code :
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:#"MyImageWithoutExtension"];
Don't put any path or extension, only the image's name
Try using this:
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"MSB_big_icon" ofType:#"png" inDirectory:#"Raymio_android_images/MSB_big_icon.imageset"];
What you can also do to debug is to print out
[[NSBundle mainBundle] bundleURL]
Then navigate to that folder and see if the folder structure corresponds to the path you use.
I just struggled with this today, hope it works out for you too.

NSBundle pathForResource doesn't work for subdirectory localization?

I saw quite a few questions regarding [NSBundle MainBundle] pathForResource (using inDirectory or not), but my case seems different.
My problem is: Yes, it works fine for whatever files in subdirectory if without localization. For example, it returns the correct path for the file data/a/words.txt when I use
[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"words.txt" ofType:nil inDirectory:#"data/a"]
However, after I localized the words.txt, let's say the real path becomes: data/a/en.lproj/words.txt, then the above code cannot find the path anymore.
I checked the file in the .app package and the file has been copied into the correct path (data/a/en.lproj), it's just somehow the code cannot find it.
I'm using XCode 5.1.1
Isn't pathForResource supposed to find the text automatically?
Try adding forLocalization to pathForResource, like this:
NSArray* availableLocalizations = [[NSBundle mainBundle] localizations];
NSArray* userPrefered = [NSBundle preferredLocalizationsFromArray:availableLocalizations forPreferences:[NSLocale preferredLanguages]];
NSString *indexPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"words" ofType:#"txt" inDirectory:#"data/a" forLocalization:[userPrefered objectAtIndex:0]];

Load Pods-acknowledgements.markdown as NSString

I'm building an application and want to load the cocoapods auto-generated acknowledgements markdown file into an NSString to be displayed in my application. I though it would be as simple, as doing this:
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Pods-acknowledgements" ofType:#"markdown"];
NSString *content = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:path encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
But this doesn't work.... Is there a way to access this file?
It doesn't look like this file is automatically copied into your project bundle.
You need to add this file to your Copy bundle Resource build phase. It's also worth nothing that the file name actually contains your project's name Pods-<PROJECT_NAME>-acknowledgements
In practice you may want to make a symbolic link in your project that points to the generated file in the Pods directory to ensure that the newly generated file is used each time

How to put file names in mutable arrays?

I'm developing for iOS. how can I put in a NSMutableArray all file names that are present in the app? Thanks a lot
Try
NSString path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSArray *files = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:path error:NULL];
This should give you content inside the .app folder. If you have files inside subfolders, you'll have to check if the file returned is a file or folder, and get the files inside recursively

Resources