Question

According Mac App Store rules 2.30:
“Program may write only to allowed locations.”

My app (com.SomeApp) contains bundled app with own ID (com.SomeHelper).
This helper app, unfortunately, can write own preferences (~/Library/Preferences/com.SomeHelper.plist) and cache files (~/Library/Caches/com.SomeHelper).
Reviewers rejected entire app! There is no way to discuss about this stupid rule.
Developer can register only one ID for MAS app in iTC, and I can’t use the same ID for bundled apps (to prevent conflicts and pass iTC meta-information validation).
Cache file generated by network services (on URL requests).

How to solve this puzzle?
Is there a way to disable plist and cache at all?
Or maybe there is a way to change location for preferences and cache file?
Is there a better solution?

Answer 1

Here is my final solution (partially in pseudocode, sorry):

// in the helper’s main.m:

@implementation NSUserDefaults (Forwarder)

-(void)setObject:(id)value forKey:(NSString *)defaultName
{
[[MainAppServer sharedPrefsServer]/* some IPC to parent process*/ setObject:value forKey:defaultName];// I still use distributed objects available before sandboxing rules, next we can use XPC, I hope…
}

@end


int main(int argc,char* argv[])
{
…

NSAutoreleasePool * arp = [NSAutoreleasePool new];
[NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:[[[NSURLCache alloc] initWithMemoryCapacity:0 diskCapacity:0 diskPath:@"/dev/null"] autorelease]];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] addSuiteNamed:@"your.main.app.plist-domain.here"];
[arp drain];
…
return NSApplicationMain(argc,  (const char **) argv);
}

Summary:

1. We disabled cache
2. We made user defaults read via suite, and write via forwarding by some IPC way…

I checked – no cache and plist files are producing now.
The puzzle is solved!