Question

I am having an issue reading from a custom plist. I have found the Apple documentation, and many posts on here and elsewhere, but I cannot understand what I am doing wrong.

My plist is a dictionary with two strings (urls).

Here is my code that is just like Apple’s and other sites:

- (void)accessPlistForURLDictionary
{
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains (NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsPath = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *plistPath = [documentsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"server_urls.plist"];

    if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:plistPath])
    {
        // if not in documents, get property list from main bundle
        plistPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"server_urls" ofType:@"plist"];
        NSLog(@"bundle");
    }

    NSData *xml = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] contentsAtPath:plistPath];
    NSString *error = nil;
    NSPropertyListFormat format;
    // convert static property liost into dictionary object
    NSDictionary *plistDictionary = (NSDictionary *)[NSPropertyListSerialization propertyListFromData:xml mutabilityOption:NSPropertyListMutableContainersAndLeaves format:&format errorDescription:&error];
    if (!plistDictionary)
    {
        NSLog(@"Error reading plist: %@, format: %d", error, format);
    }

    serverURL = [[plistDictionary objectForKey:@"Root"] objectForKey:@"get_firstview"];
    NSLog(@"serverURL in accessPlist is: %@", serverURL);
}

Here is the log…. I don’t get why serverURL (a string variable that is synthesized) is ‘null’

2013-01-07 12:47:06.742 ME[2305:c07] bundle
2013-01-07 12:47:06.744 ME[2305:c07] serverURL in accessPlist is: (null)
2013-01-07 12:47:06.744 ME[2305:c07] serverURL is: (null)

The last check is done right before I use serverURL in viewDidLoad

I have the plist added in Build Settings (I think). It must be an issue with my code, but I can’t find what.

Answer 1

There is easier way to load plist into NSDictionary

NSMutableDictionary *plistDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile: plistPath];

Try that.