Question

I was wondering, is there a best practice to write an OSX programm that copies or moves a file from one place to another?

• is there some NSSomething method I can call?
• Do I have to work with Input/Output streams?
• Or is the best way maybe to just rely on passing commands to the finder?

Bonus question: How do I get percentages a la ‘copy 12% complete’ with one of these methods?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

NSFileManager and NSWorkspace both have methods to move, copy, and delete files. Usually you’d use NSFileManager since its easier to work with:

if ( [[NSFileManager defaultManager] isReadableFileAtPath:source] )     [[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtURL:source toURL:destination error:nil]; 

However, NSWorkspace can easily move files to the Trash, which NSFileManager can’t do.

[[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] performFileOperation:NSWorkspaceRecycleOperation source:foldername destination:@'' files:filenamesArray tag:&tag]; 

Check the documentation for a more complete description of the two classes. (NSFileManager, NSWorkspace)