Question

ios claims the file has been written to, but the changes never actually save, as if they remain in buffer. Do I have to flush or something?

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    NSString *myFilePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle]
                            pathForResource:@"MyFile"
                            ofType:@"txt"];

    NSLog(@"\n\nPath = \n%@", myFilePath);

    NSString *myFileContents = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:myFilePath
                                    encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding
                                    error:nil];


    NSLog(@"\n\nContents = \n%@", myFileContents);

    [@"This line will be written to file" writeToFile:myFilePath
        atomically:YES encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];

    NSString *changedContents = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:myFilePath
                                    encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding
                                    error:nil];

    NSLog(@"\n\nChanged Contents = \n%@", changedContents);
}

Output:

Path = 
/Users/hamzeh/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/2B318687-A745-4CD9-85BA-52A01AB76F6E/savepersistentdata_tutorial.app/MyFile.txt

Contents = 
This is a text file.
The file will be displayed on the iPhone.
That is all for now. 

Changed Contents = 
This line will be written to file

This is the output I get every time I run, so the changes don’t actually get written to the file.

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

You can’t edit files in your main bundle. You have to first save the file to the applications documents folder then make any changes.

Here’s some code to maybe fix your issue:

First save the text to a directory you create:

NSString *myFilePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle]
                            pathForResource:@"MyFile"
                            ofType:@"txt"];
NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSLibraryDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *directory = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/Some_Directory", [paths objectAtIndex:0]];

// Check if the directory already exists
if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:directory]) {
    // Directory does not exist so create it
    [[NSFileManager defaultManager] createDirectoryAtPath:directory withIntermediateDirectories:YES attributes:nil error:nil];
} 

NSData *data = [[NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:myFilePath] retain];

NSString *filePath = [[directory stringByAppendingPathComponent:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", [myFilePath lastPathComponent]]] retain];



NSError *error = nil;
if (![data writeToFile:filePath options:NSDataWritingFileProtectionNone error:&error]) {
    [data writeToFile:filePath atomically:NO];
}
[data release];
[filePath release];