CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosiphoneswiftxcodefile
b1skit
b1skit

Reputation: 339

iOS reading from a file

I'm trying to get my iPhone app to load text from a file into a string array, with 1 line from the file per array element.

I've created an input file as a text file using sublime text. I dragged the file (which is located inside of a folder inside of my project directory) into xCode into a folder in the same location in the project heirarchy.

I also tried adding it as a bundle (by copying the folder and renaming it with the .bundle extension), to no avail. Currently, my app has the file in 2 places (Obviously I plan to delete the unneeded version, but I'm not sure how this will work so I've left it for now).

I've written a function that I want to read my file, and assemble its contents into an array:

func readFromFile(filename: String) -> [String]? {

    guard let theFile = Bundle.main.path( forResource: fileName, ofType: "txt") else {           
        return nil // ALWAYS returns nil here: Seems 'filename' can't be found?????
    }

    do { // Extract the file contents, and return them as a split string array
        let fileContents = try String(contentsOfFile: theFile)
        return fileContents.components(separatedBy: "\n")

    } catch _ as NSError {
        return nil
    }
}

As it stands, the function always returns nil at the location commented in the code.

I've been working on this for ~6hrs (and tried every suggestion I could find on StackOverflow, google etc) and I'm just getting more and more confused by the differences between the various versions of Swift and intricacies of iOS development. I can't seem to find a consistent answer anywhere. I've checked the apple documentation but it's too high level with no example code for me to understand at my swift beginner level.

I also tried naming the file with a ".txt" extension but that didn't help either.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 185

Answers (1)

matt
matt

Reputation: 534885

The file must certainly be named alert01.txt if you are going to refer to it as forResource: "alert01", ofType: "txt".

Loading from a bundle will not work. The file needs to be part of your project as shown in the first entry.

However, your code is not going to work because you have created a folder reference. That means the folder PanicAlertFiles is being copied with all its contents into your bundle. Your code will need to dive into that folder in order to retrieve your file. Use path(forResource:ofType:inDirectory:) to do that, or (if you don't want to have to code the file name explicitly) get the folder and then use the FileManager to examine its contents.

Upvotes: 2

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