Plist cannot be read ... What am I doing wrong? - objective-c

Question

I have got a plist in my Resources folder called "levelconfig.plist" and I want to read something out of it.
I did the following :
-(NSString *) dataFilePath
{
NSArray *path = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentDirectory = [path objectAtIndex:0];
return [documentDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"levelconfig.plist"];
}
-(void) readPlist{
NSString *filePath = [self dataFilePath];
if([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:filePath]){
NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc]initWithContentsOfFile:filePath];
NSLog(#"%#",array);
NSLog(#"%#", filePath);
}
}
And in the ccTouchesBegan method I call :
[self readPlist];
My plist contains an array, that should be displayed right ? Is it a good idea to store level data in a .plist file ?
plist file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Root</key>
<array>
<string>sunday</string>
<string>monday</string>
<integer>44</integer>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>

Answer 1

You must first read the dictionary as specified in your plist. For example:
NSString *mainPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSString *itemPositionPlistLocation = [mainPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"test.plist"];
NSDictionary * itemPositions = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:itemPositionPlistLocation];
NSArray * items = [itemPositions objectForKey:#"Root"];
NSLog(#"%#", items);
I'm not sure what you are doing with your other code but two lines suffice to load the file. Please excuse the variable names; I quickly adapted this from my current project. Also, make sure you release the Array and Dictionary in dealloc or wherever appropriate.

Answer 2

Are you sure it's in your resources folder? In that case you aren't building the path properly. You will probably want to use [NSBundle pathForResource:] (docs)

Answer 3

Your pList file is a Dictionary that has an array in the Root key and you are reading it in to an Array.
-(void) readPlist{
NSString *filePath = [self dataFilePath];
if([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:filePath]){
NSDictionary *dict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:filePath];
NSArray *array = [[NSArray alloc]initWithArray:[dict objectForKey:#"Root"]];
NSLog(#"%#",array);
NSLog(#"%#", filePath);
[dict release];
[array release];
}
}