iphone writeToFile: problem

Question

Is there any way to save my .xml file to another directory other than "/Users/student/Library/Application Support/iPhone/Simulator/User/Applications/..."

NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *appFile = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"accUserNames.xml"];
 BOOL ok = [content writeToFile:appFile atomically:YES encoding:NSUnicodeStringEncoding error:nil];
if (!ok) {
    NSLog(@"Error writing file !");
}

i wish to writeToFile: my .xml file to the desktop , any idea on how?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 29 '13 at 09:38

2

May the below code help,

NSString *documentsDirectory = @"/Users/student/Desktop/";
NSString *appFile = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"accUserNames.xml"];
BOOL ok = [content writeToFile:appFile atomically:YES encoding:NSUnicodeStringEncoding error:nil];
if (!ok) {
    NSLog(@"Error writing file !");
}

edited May 29 '13 at 09:38

Fox32

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answered Jun 23 '11 at 06:20

Hiren Gujarati

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thanks man , what if i want to upload to a server? e.g. NSString *documentsDirectory = @"www.blablah.com" ? – Steve Jabs Jun 23 '11 at 06:28
you mean you want to upload file to server? or anything else? – Hiren Gujarati Jun 23 '11 at 06:31
may this link help http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1266176/upload-file-to-ftp-server-on-iphone – Hiren Gujarati Jun 23 '11 at 09:26

jtbandes · Answer 2 · 2011-06-23T06:22:31.300

1

From within the iPhone Simulator, you should be able to successfully use @"/Users/student/Desktop/accUserNames.xml" as the path to write to. However, you can't do this on an iOS device (you'll be restricted to the application's sandbox directory — it's recommended you write to the Documents folder or other folders in there, depending what type of data you're storing).

Edit: I think I understand your problem. This part of your code:

NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];

effectively finds the path to "/Users/student/Library/Application Support/iPhone/Simulator/User/Applications/..." (this is the normal place you want to save things). But if you just want to save to the desktop temporarily, you should just use appFile = @"/Users/student/Desktop/accUserNames.xml".

Note: I don't advocate this as a long-term solution, but if you just want to see the output of your program temporarily, it works fine.

edited Jun 23 '11 at 06:22

answered Jun 23 '11 at 06:07

jtbandes

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yeah i tried using that @"/Users/student/Desktop/accUserNames.xml" but the outcome is "/Users/student/Library/Application Support/iPhone/Simulator/User/Applications/**Users/student/Desktop/accUserNames.xml**" – Steve Jabs Jun 23 '11 at 06:16
@Steve Jabs: updated my answer because I think I understand what you want better. – jtbandes Jun 23 '11 at 06:23
yeah just trying to test out if the output can be placed in other directory, if this works then maybe i'm able to write the xml file to the server , thanks ! – Steve Jabs Jun 23 '11 at 07:06

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Probably not with code, but you could try this: Open "Automator" (in the Utilities folder) and chose "Folder Action". As Input folder, you specify the directory of the documents (/Users/student/Library/Application Support/iPhone/Simulator/User/Applications/...) and then you select, from "Files & Folders", "Duplicate Finder Items" and "Move Finder Items" and select the Desktop. Hit "Save", give it a name, and all files in the documents folder should be copied to the desktop.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 23 '11 at 08:14

If you want to upload your file to a server ("www.blahblah.com" in your example), then using the write to file methods is not the correct approach. This is only for writing data to the local file system (or on a network share, but that doesn't apply to iPhones).

If you want to transfer data to a webserver, you will need to have something on the server that will listen for a connection request, then it will need to accept the data which is transferred from your app. You cannot just write a file to "www.blahblah.com" as you would to a file system

iphone writeToFile: problem

4 Answers4