Confused on creating new directories and changing directories (Objective-C) - objective-c

When I changed the current directory path of main.m to newDir why does it still say that there are no files in newDir? Also I ran this program multiple times with no errors. Does that mean I ended up creating multiple newDir?
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
#autoreleasepool {
NSString *newDir = #"newDir";
NSFileManager *manager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
if ([manager createDirectoryAtPath:newDir withIntermediateDirectories:YES attributes:nil error:NULL] == NO) {
NSLog(#"couldnt create new directory");
return 1;
}
if ([manager changeCurrentDirectoryPath: newDir] == NO) {
NSLog(#"couldnt change directory path");
return 2;
}
NSLog(#"%#", [manager currentDirectoryPath]);
NSLog(#"%#", [manager contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:newDir error:NULL]);
}
return 0;
}
Output:
2012-08-07 10:27:20.428 Test[853:707] /Users/ss/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Test-bfrqtnrhaafmdzghoyirjnfqjbfc/Build/Products/Debug/newDir
2012-08-07 10:36:47.832 Test[885:707] (null)

The path to main.m does not play into what happens when you run your program: the only question is whether the directory has any files or not, and from the log it appears that it doesn't.
To create some files in the directory, run these commands in the terminal window:
touch /Users/ss/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Test-bfrqtnrhaafmdzghoyirjnfqjbfc/Build/Products/Debug/newDir/quick.txt
touch /Users/ss/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Test-bfrqtnrhaafmdzghoyirjnfqjbfc/Build/Products/Debug/newDir/brown.txt
touch /Users/ss/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Test-bfrqtnrhaafmdzghoyirjnfqjbfc/Build/Products/Debug/newDir/fox.txt
This will create three empty files. Now run your program, and see if it discovers the newly created txt files; it should.
On your second question, the operating system would not let you create multiple file system objects with identical names, so the answer is no, you created only one newDir.

Since you're ignoring errors on your contentsOfDirectoryAtPath call, it's entirely possible that the call is failing -- hence the null.
Without looking at references, it appears that you're looking for directory .../newDir/newDir, a directory that likely does not exist.
In any event, since newDir is new it wouldn't contain any entries (other than . and ..).

Related

While loop with NSFileManager directory enumerator not running

I am seeking help to understand why a tutorial I am following is not working for me. I am running macOS 12.3.1, Xcode 13.3.1. The project is in Objective-C and using XIB.
This is a view-based NSTableView, using a folder of PNGs stored on my SSD for the imageView and the stringByDeletingPathExtension as stringValue for the cell's text field. I filled my code with NSLog calls to try and catch what could have been going awry.
Most setup is happening in applicationDidFinishLaunching:, where I initialise an NSMutableArray for the table's content, an NSString for the file path, then set up the file manager and the directory enumerator with said path (note: all working up to here).
Now comes the loop to populate the table contents' mutable array. I cannot understand why said loop gets skipped entirely! Its condition is to set an NSString equal to the nextObject of the directory enumerator. I am sure the loop gets skipped because the NSLog call after the loop runs!
Here is the entire code of applicationDidFinishLaunching:, including my comments and logs (I have just replaced my account name with ):
-(void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification {
_tableContents = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
NSString *path = #"/Users/<myUsername>/Developer/Apple-Programming-YT/Cocoa Programming/Flags/PNG/40x30";
// MARK: Debug 1
NSLog(#"path found: %#", path); // the correct path gets printed, as expected
NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSDirectoryEnumerator *directoryEnum = [fileManager enumeratorAtPath:path];
NSString *file;
// MARK: Debug 2
NSLog(#"Checking that file is empty: %#", file); // (null) gets printed, as expected
// MARK: Debug 3
if (file != directoryEnum.nextObject) {
NSLog(#"File cannot be assigned to the Directory Enumerator");
} else if (file == directoryEnum.nextObject) {
NSLog(#"File properly assigned. Proceed!"); // this gets printed! Is it correct?
} else {
NSLog(#"Something went wrong during assignment of nextObject to file");
}
while (file = [directoryEnum nextObject]) {
NSLog(#"While loop entered!"); // this doesn't get printed! Why?!
// MARK: Debug 4
NSLog(#"File: %#", file);
NSString *filePath = [path stringByAppendingFormat:#"/%#", file];
// MARK: Debug 5
NSLog(#"Image filepath: %#", filePath);
NSDictionary *obj = #{#"image": [[NSImage alloc] initByReferencingFile:filePath],
#"name": [file stringByDeletingPathExtension]};
[self.tableContents addObject:obj];
}
[self.tableView reloadData];
NSLog(#"Table View Reloaded"); // This gets printed!
}
I have uploaded the full app to GitHub, in case you may want to look at it and see if something else could be wrong, but every outlet, delegate, data source is connected.
Now for my diagnosis & ideas:
The Debug 3 mark is what I find most interesting. AFAIK file should still be (null), so how checking if it is equal to directoryEnum.nextObject returns YES?
I created Debug 3 because the NSLog checking whether the loop had been entered didn't get printed. I therefore assumed the condition for the while loop had a problem.
I then tried to create a do-while loop instead of this while loop and, of course, the code ran. For the log with "Image filepath" it returned the address above followed by (null), as if it didn't find the file. But how is it possible if the file is indeed there? Do I require some sort of permission to access it? Being the object empty, the next line in the console was quite clear: "attempt to insert nil object from objects[1]".
But now, how do I solve this?
Any help here is much appreciated. If you download it from GitHub, please replaces the *path string with a folder of PNGs on your SSD.
Thank you.
I don't think you can access the filesystem directly with a path like that any more. If you check the value of file in your code, it is nil, which means that file == directoryEnum.nextObject will evaluate to true.
You have to create a path starting with NSHomeDirectory() or similar and add components to it. This makes a path that goes via your application support folder, which contains an alias to the desktop. I'm not sure why that's OK and accessing it directly is not, but I'm not a Mac developer.
I'd have to say following a tutorial as old as that, you're going to struggle with a lot of things.

fileExistsAtPath returns NO for a directory that exists

fileExistsAtPath is returning NO for a directory that exists. If I have the following code:
NSURL *newDirectoryPath = ... // path does not begin with a tilda
// and is created using URLByAppendingPathComponent:isDirectory:
BOOL directoryExists = [self.fileManager fileExistsAtPath:[newDirectoryPath absoluteString]];
if (NO == directoryExists)
{
BOOL ret = [self.fileManager moveItemAtURL:self.currentPresentationDirectoryPath toURL:newDirectoryPath error: &err];
// ret is YES, err is nil
directoryExists = [self.fileManager fileExistsAtPath:[newDirectoryPath absoluteString]];
}
Even though the directory has just been created successfully with moveItemAtURL, fileExistsAtPath is still returning NO.
I know the documentation says this:
Attempting to predicate behavior based on the current state of the
file system or a particular file on the file system is not
recommended. Doing so can cause odd behavior in the case of file
system race conditions.
But I want to understand what the issue is here - if I close the app and relaunch it then the first check for fileExistsAtPath in the code above is still returning NO, even though the directory was previously successfully created during the prior execution of the code, and I can see the directory in the Organizer, and I can also successfully read from the contents of the directory etc. etc.
P.S. is there no fileExistsAtURL: method?
If you have an NSURL, -absoluteURL won't return a usable path for NSFileManager. It will return the absolute URL with the file:// prefix. E.g.: file:///path/to/file.
Instead try to use an other method, like -path. Check if that works.
NSURL *myURL = /* some url */;
NSString *myPath;
BOOL exi;
myPath = [myURL path];
exi = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:myPath];
if(!exi) {
NSLog(#"File does not exist");
}

How to make a directory iOS?

Okay,
So I have a Cydia app that I need to update. I am aware with Cydia apps that they don't have a Documents folder, so you have to make one. And here's how I made it before in iOS 4 (which doesn't work on iOS 5):
mkdir("/var/mobile/Library/APPNAME", 0755);
mkdir("/var/mobile/Library/APPNAME/Documents", 0755);
NSString *foofile = #"/var/mobile/Library/APPNAME/Documents/database.db";
BOOL fileExists = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:foofile];
if (fileExists == TRUE) {
NSLog(#"already exists");
} else {
NSLog(#"doesn't exists");
NSFileManager *fileManager = [[NSFileManager defaultManager]autorelease];
NSError *error;
NSString *documentDBFolderPath = #"/var/mobile/Library/APPNAME/Documents/database.db";
NSString *resourceDBFolderPath = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"database.db"];
[fileManager copyItemAtPath:resourceDBFolderPath toPath:documentDBFolderPath error:&error];
}
I also included code that copies the database file to that folder, too. That doesn't work (even when I create the folder manually via SSH).
Please help! Thanks.
Here is the method I made to create directories
-(void)createDirectory:(NSString *)directoryName atFilePath:(NSString *)filePath
{
NSString *filePathAndDirectory = [filePath stringByAppendingPathComponent:directoryName];
NSError *error;
if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] createDirectoryAtPath:filePathAndDirectory
withIntermediateDirectories:NO
attributes:nil
error:&error])
{
NSLog(#"Create directory error: %#", error);
}
}
Try using createDirectoryAtURL:withIntermediateDirectories:attributes:error:.
NSFileManager Class Reference:
createDirectoryAtURL:withIntermediateDirectories:attributes:error:
Creates a directory with given attributes at the specified path.
Parameters
url - A file URL that specifies the directory to create.
If you want to specify a relative path, you must set the
current working directory before creating the corresponding
NSURL object. This parameter must not be nil.
createIntermediates - If YES, this method creates any non-existent
parent directories as part of creating the directory in url. If NO,
this method fails if any of the intermediate parent directories does
not exist. This method also fails if any of the intermediate path
elements corresponds to a file and not a directory.
attributes - The file attributes for the new directory and any newly created
intermediate directories. You can set the owner and group numbers,
file permissions, and modification date. If you specify nil for this
parameter or omit a particular value, one or more default values are
used as described in the discussion. For a list of keys you can
include in this dictionary, see “Constants” (page 54) section lists
the global constants used as keys in the attributes dictionary. Some
of the keys, such as NSFileHFSCreatorCode and NSFileHFSTypeCode, do
not apply to directories.
error - On input, a pointer to an error object. If an error occurs,
this pointer is set to an actual error object containing the error
information. You may specify nil for this parameter if you do not
want the error information.
Return Value
YES if the
directory was created or already exists or NO if an error occurred.
Check NSFileManager's class reference. To create folders you need createDirectoryAtPath:withIntermediateDirectories:attributes:error:
Superb Techotopia explanation of iOS5 filesystem
In Swift, returns true if exists or created.
func ensureDirectoryExists(path:String) -> Bool {
if !NSFileManager.defaultManager().fileExistsAtPath(path) {
do {
try NSFileManager.defaultManager().createDirectoryAtPath(path, withIntermediateDirectories: true, attributes: nil)
} catch {
print(error)
return false
}
}
return true
}

FMDB - Failed to modify DB from Cocoa

I am working on a Cocoa application which talks to a local SQLite database with FMDB. I ran into an issue that I can't do any insert or update operation on DB. Select queries run perfectly fine, so I would assume my db connection settings are correct.
The structure of my code is basically like this:
FMDatabase* db=[FMDatabase databaseWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"DBName" ofType:#"sqlite"]];
if(![db open])
{
NSLog(#"Could not open db.");
}
db.traceExecution=YES;
[db beginTransation];
[db ExecuteUpdate:"INSERT INTO test (title) VALUES(?)", [NSNumber numberWithInt]:2],nil];
[db commit];
[db close];
No exceptions or warnings were thrown during execution, the console output regarding db.traceExecution is like following:
<FMDatabase: 0x100511fd0> executeUpdate: BEGIN EXCLUSIVE TRANSACTION;
<FMDatabase: 0x100511fd0> executeUpdate: INSERT INTO test (title) VALUES(?);
obj: 2
<FMDatabase: 0x100511fd0> executeUpdate: COMMIT TRANSACTION;
The testing database is simply just a one column table of INT type.
Everything looks fine except that the db file is not updated at all. It's really confusing to me as the Select query works perfectly fine. I checked the path of the database, it is pointing to the right one. First I suspect it's caused by file permission, but the issue remain the same even if I allowed everyone to be able to read/write.
I have been stucked with this problems for many hours and couldn't find a proper solution. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks!
Databases in the bundle are read only. If the file doesn't exist at the destination folder where you define, you should copy it from the bundle to the library or documents folder and then connect to that. That means it will copy on first use of that path.
Here's a function to 'prepare' the database by copying it to the destination from the bundle. It copies it to library (from my iOS app) but you can copy wherever you want. In my case, it was contacts.db.
I called this method from ensureOpened.
- (BOOL)ensureDatabasePrepared: (NSError **)error
{
// already prepared
if ((_dbPath != nil) &&
([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:_dbPath]))
{
return YES;
}
// db in main bundle - cant edit. copy to library if !exist
NSString *dbTemplatePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"contacts" ofType:#"db"];
NSLog(#"%#", dbTemplatePath);
NSString *libraryPath = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSLibraryDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) lastObject];
_dbPath = [libraryPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"contacts.db"];
NSLog(#"dbPath: %#", _dbPath);
// copy db from template to library
if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:_dbPath])
{
NSLog(#"db not exists");
NSError *error = nil;
if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:dbTemplatePath toPath:_dbPath error:&error])
{
return NO;
}
NSLog(#"copied");
}
return YES;
}

NSBundle pathForResource failing in shell tool

I've noticed some weird behavior with NSBundle when using it in a
command-line program. If, in my program, I take an existing bundle and
make a copy of it and then try to use pathForResource to look up
something in the Resources folder, nil is always returned unless the
bundle I'm looking up existed before my program started. I created a
sample app that replicates the issue and the relevant code is:
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
NSString *exePath = [NSString stringWithCString:argv[0]
encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
NSString *path = [exePath stringByDeletingLastPathComponent];
NSString *templatePath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"TestApp.app"];
// This call works because TestApp.app exists before this program is run
NSString *resourcePath = [NSBundle pathForResource:#"InfoPlist"
ofType:#"strings"
inDirectory:templatePath];
NSLog(#"NOCOPY: %#", resourcePath);
NSString *copyPath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"TestAppCopy.app"];
[[NSFileManager defaultManager] removeItemAtPath:copyPath
error:nil];
if ([[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:templatePath
toPath:copyPath
error:nil])
{
// This call will fail if TestAppCopy.app does not exist before
// this program is run
NSString *resourcePath2 = [NSBundle pathForResource:#"InfoPlist"
ofType:#"strings"
inDirectory:copyPath];
NSLog(#"COPY: %#", resourcePath2);
[[NSFileManager defaultManager] removeItemAtPath:copyPath
error:nil];
}
[pool release];
}
For the purpose of this test app, let's assume that TestApp.app
already exists in the same directory as my test app. If I run this,
the 2nd NSLog call will output: COPY: (null)
Now, if I comment out the final removeItemAtPath call in the if
statement so that when my program exits TestAppCopy.app still exists
and then re-run, the program will work as expected.
I've tried this in a normal Cocoa application and I can't reproduce
the behavior. It only happens in a shell tool target.
Can anyone think of a reason why this is failing?
BTW: I'm trying this on 10.6.4 and I haven't tried on any other
versions of Mac OS X.
I can confirm that it is a bug in CoreFoundation, not Foundation. The bug is due to CFBundle code relying on a directory contents cache containing stale data. The code apparently assumes that neither the bundle directories nor their immediate parent directories will change during application runtime.
The CoreFoundation call corresponding to +[NSBundle pathForResource:ofType:inDirectory:] is CFBundleCopyResourceURLInDirectory(), and it exhibits the same misbehavior. (This is unsurprising, as -pathForResource:ofType:inDirectory: itself uses this call.)
The problem ultimately lies with _CFBundleCopyDirectoryContentsAtPath(). This is called during bundle loading and during all resource lookup. It caches information about the directories it looks up in contentsCache.
Here's the problem: When it comes time to get the contents of TestAppCopy.app, the cached contents of the directory containing TestApp.app don't include TestAppCopy.app. Because the cache ostensibly has the contents of that directory, only the cached contents are searched for TestAppCopy.app. When TestAppCopy.app is not found, the function takes that as a definitive "this path does not exist" and doesn't bother trying to open the directory:
__CFSpinLock(&CFBundleResourceGlobalDataLock);
if (contentsCache) dirDirContents = (CFArrayRef)CFDictionaryGetValue(contentsCache, dirName);
if (dirDirContents) {
Boolean foundIt = false;
CFIndex dirDirIdx, dirDirLength = CFArrayGetCount(dirDirContents);
for (dirDirIdx = 0; !foundIt && dirDirIdx < dirDirLength; dirDirIdx++) if (kCFCompareEqualTo == CFStringCompare(name, CFArrayGetValueAtIndex(dirDirContents, dirDirIdx), kCFCompareCaseInsensitive)) foundIt = true;
if (!foundIt) tryToOpen = false;
}
__CFSpinUnlock(&CFBundleResourceGlobalDataLock);
So, the contents array remains empty, gets cached for this path, and lookup continues. We now have cached the (incorrectly empty) contents of TestAppCopy.app, and as lookup drills down into this directory, we keep hitting bad cached information. Language lookup takes a stab when it finds nothing and hopes there's an en.lproj hanging around, but we still won't find anything, because we're looking in a stale cache.
CoreFoundation includes SPI functions to flush the CFBundle caches. The only place public API calls into them in CoreFoundation is __CFBundleDeallocate(). This flushes all cached information about the bundle's directory itself, but not its parent directory: _CFBundleFlushContentsCacheForPath(), which actually removes the data from the cache, removes only keys matching an anchored, case-insensitive search for the bundle path.
It would seem the only public way a client of CoreFoundation could flush bad information about TestApp.app's parent directory would be to make the parent directory a bundle directory (so TestApp.app lived alongside Contents), create a CFBundle for the parent bundle directory, then release that CFBundle. But, it seems that if you made the mistake of trying to work with the TestAppCopy.app bundle prior to flushing it, the bad data about TestAppCopy.app would not be flushed.
That sounds like a bug in the Foundation. The one key difference between a command line tool like that one and a Cocoa application is the run loop. Try refactoring the above into something like:
#interface Foo:NSObject
#end
#implementation Foo
- (void) doIt { .... your code from main() here .... }
#end
... main(...) {
Foo *f = [Foo new];
[f performSelector: #selector(doIt) withObject: nil afterDelay: 0.1 ...];
[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] run];
return 0; // not reached, I'd bet.
}
And see if that "fixes" it. It might. It might not (there are couple of other significant differences, obviously). In any case, do please file a bug via http://bugreport.apple.com/ and add the bug # as a comment.