I am writing a program in Objective-C using Xcode. My program creates a file as follows:
[#"" writeToFile:fileName atomically:YES encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:NULL];
I would like the file to be created in the same directory as the executable. When I run the program from Xcode, the file is created in the debug directory as expected.
However, when I run the .app file, the file is created in the root directory. How can I get the program to create a file in the directory where the .app file is located.
Thanks a lot.
EDIT: This is a MacOS application
EDIT2: Well, it seems that I shouldn't be writing to the .app directory. Thanks bbum and Paul R. What is the proper way to do it? To be more concrete, here's what I am doing: each time the user clicks a button in the application, a piece of hardware connected to a serial port will send a bunch data which will be written to a new file. This can happen any number of times while the application is running, so numerous files may be created. I would like them all created in the same folder.
You must never make any assumptions about the initial working directory for your application, as this will depend on what method was used to launch it (e.g. Finder, Terminal (via open), Xcode, gdb, third party utility, etc). You should use an appropriate API to find a suitable directory to store temporary files or user-specific files or whatever it is you need to do. This should never be within the app's bundle and never at a path that is relative to the initial working directory.
You do not want the file to be created inside the .app wrapper. That is never the right answer; your application may easily be installed somewhere where the current user does not have write access to the YourApp.app wrapper.
(For example, my main user account is non-admin and all applications are installed admin-write-only. If an app ever fails to work because it can't write to its app wrapper, the app goes in the trash.)
See this question for an outline of where files should be stored. Depends on the role of the file.
Related
I have a c++ command line application that I have already compiled into an executable and have added it into my Xcode project. I have also added the "Copy Files" section to the Build Phases tab of the project properties and added my executable with the "Executables" destination. When I build my application I see it in the test.app/Contents/MacOS folder when I View package contents on the test.app that is built.
I also have App Sandbox enabled on the Capabilities tab of the project (so that I can distribute my application through the mac app store.
How can I expose this command line executable that is bundled with my application to the user so that they can run it from the command line (terminal)? I have not been able to find anything on search engines or on StackOverflow about how to get this file (or a symlink to this file) into the users PATH. I tried using an NSTask to create a symlink, but that only works if I disable the App Sandbox (which makes sense). Has anyone done this before? How did you get it to work? Or can these executables only be executed by code within your application?
I don't see a good way to do this. First, a clarification: the PATH is a list of directories that contain executables, not a list of executables; there's no way to add a single executable to the PATH. Instead, what you'd need to do is either put your executable into one of the directories in the user's PATH, or add the directory your executable is in into the PATH.
On OS X, the default PATH is /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin. The first 4 directories shouldn't be modified from the system default, so only /usr/local/bin is a possibility. But creating it (it doesn't exist by default) would require admin (actually root) rights, which isn't allowed by App Store policies. So that's out.
That leaves modifying the user's PATH. The "right" way to do that system-wide is by placing a file in /etc/paths.d, which requires admin (/root) rights, so that's out too. Technically modifying the /etc/paths file would work, but that has the same permissions problem plus it's the wrong way to do customization.
The next possibility is to modify (/create) the user's shell initialization script(s). This'll work, but doing it at all right is going to be messy, because there are several shells the user might use, each with several different possible initialization scripts that the user might or might not have created...
Let's take a very simple case: a user who only ever uses bash, and who doesn't already have any initialization scripts. When a "login" instance of bash starts, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile (in that order), and runs the first one it finds. But your app doesn't know which shell he uses, so you'd better create ~/.profile so zsh and ksh will use it as well. So, your app creates ~/.profile, and puts this in it:
PATH="$PATH:/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/Helpers"
Great, right? Yup, great, until the user runs something else that wants to set their PATH, it creates ~/.bash_profile, and this overrides your setup. After that, your executable will be in the PATH of zsh and ksh, but not bash. Whee.
And then one day the user decides to use tcsh instead, and it (and csh) have a completely different but equally messy pile of possible init files...
I'm new with Cocoa / Objective-C development and I have a question.
Last week I had to create a SWF based Screensaver for Mac, and as I didn't find a free-compatible solution for Mac OS X Snow Leopard / Lion, I created a .saver bundle with Xcode 4. It creates inside a webview and loads inside the SWF file.
You must place the SWF file inside the Resources folder inside the bundle to make it work with different SWFs.
And now, I'm trying to code a Cocoa Application to do it automatically.
It has a simple user interface so as the user can select a SWF file. Then the code makes a copy of my previously build .saver file (I have the path hardcoded), places inside it a copy of the SWF file, and saves it where the user indicates in a save panel.
And here comes my question. Now I have the path of the .saver file hardcoded, but I need to have it as a Resource inside my app. Would it be possible? How could I use/access it?
Thanks for your help and time!
Your application already has at least one resource, assuming you didn't delete the MainMenu nib. Add your .saver bundle to that build phase. In the app's code, get the URL to the screen-saver bundle the usual way.
I've been teaching myself over the last couple of weeks by typing in programs from the iPad books I bought (Backlin's, SAM's, Apps for Dummies, etc.) and YouTube tutorials. Still, there are a couple of things I haven't grasped intuitively. Do you mind helping me out?
I got a program working that saves and retrieves names and phone numbers from pList files. I looked on the Mac's HD and couldn't find the file (Contacts.plist), even though the program was working. I finally discovered it at
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator
I'm not sure why Finder didn't locate it. My own app needs to load a data file when it starts (questions and answers, for example). Do I write a program to create the Q & A file, (I could modify that phone program to do that) then copy the file into the simulator's virtual directory for my own app? Or do I copy that file into the XCODE Resources folder? Would the data files then travel with the finished executable program?
Sorry to sound so clueless. Thanks for any info. -Rob
If you want to deliver a file with your finished application, you must add it to your Xcode project. It doesn't matter whether you place it under Resources or in another group in Xcode as Xcode will by default copy all non-code files that are in your project into your finished app bundle.
To access this file from your code, you need to retrieve its path:
NSString *fullPathToContactsFile = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Contacts" ofType:#"plist"];
Note that unlike on the iOS Simulator, your app bundle on the device is read only, so if you want your app to make changes to the file, you cannot save it in the bundle itself. In that case, your app should copy the file from your bundle to your app's Documents or Library directory on first launch and then open/save it from/to that location.
If I try to build an application with the application class outside the default package, so the application file path is /app/AppClass.mxml instead of /AppClass.mxml (as would normally be the case), Flash builder cannot launch the application for debugging because it is looking for the SWF in debug/app/AppClass.swf and the SWF is being output to debug/AppClass.swf instead. Changing the output folder to debug/app makes it put the swf in debug/app, but then it puts the application configuration file "AppClass-app.xml" in /debug/app/app and then that can't be found.
Is there a way to change only the SWF output folder, or the location of the xml configuration file in the run-configuration?
You may use symbolic link to created swf file - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link
for example for Windows :
cd project/path/bin-debug/package/path/
MKLINK ClassName.swf project/path/bin-debug/ClassName.swf
and it's work
or you can use symbolic link for folder:
cd project/path/bin-debug/package/
MKLINK path project/path/bin-debug/ /D
I think I remember this worked for me. But it was long time ago. And, yes, it is a known problem, I also recall Adobe people mentioning it as a limitation of FB.
In my Ant script, you'll need to do the adjustments to reflect your actual file names and directory structure. Also note that it will make it more cumbersome to debug it from FB. You'll need to use the debugging target in Ant, and then connect the debugger to the running application (so that some info, especially on the startup) will be lost. The only way you would be able to debug it, though I've never tried it, is with the commandline tools (I'm not sure of adl syntax for breakpoints / printing / stack frames, so idk how to do it.
Also, for the released application you will probably want to change the signing mechanism.
This is a very simple question. I have a script in the same folder as the Cocoa app. I can't seem to set the path to it properly for setLaunchPath for NSTask. Help please.
I have a folder called Project. Inside of it, exist multiple folders but only two we care about: Classes (the source files for the Cocoa app are here) and Ruby (which is a ruby server folder). I am trying to call Ruby/script/server. I assumed it would be something like ./Ruby/script/server or Ruby/script/server but both are wrong.
Thanks.
EDIT: I guess what I'm actually asking is if there is a way to access the folder where the source files or the project is by using a special character or shortcut because by default it goes to the /tmp folder.
The current directory (in the unix sense) in an app is not guaranteed to be anything. The path to the app itself can be obtained by getting the main app bundle by
NSBundle*mainBundle=[NSBundle mainBundle];
and then getting its path
NSString*path=[mainBundle bundlePath];
However please don't do that; you won't be able to distribute your app without extra instructions of putting files here and there.
Instead, put your Ruby code inside yourApp.app/Contents/Resources/. This can be done by including the Ruby code in the XCode, and making sure it's set to be copied into the app. The files inside this Resources directory can be obtained as follows:
NSString*path=[mainBundle pathForResource:#"rubyServer" ofType:#"rb"];
To learn more about the bundle structure, read Bundle Programming Guide.