How to list all folders and their subdirectories/files in iPhone SDK?

Question

I want the user to select any file present in her/his iPhone so that it’s used as an e-mail attachment. For this purpose, I want to show the list of all files and folders present in iPhone. But how would I get the list of those files? Is there any way to get that list?

Answer 1

Take into account that your app runs in a sandbox and would not be able to get any folder/file outside of that sandbox.

ObjectiveC

NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); 
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];

NSFileManager *manager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSArray *fileList = [manager contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:documentsDirectory error:nil];
for (NSString *s in fileList){
    NSLog(@"%@", s);
}

Swift 4

guard let documentsDirectory =  try? FileManager().url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: true) else { return }
guard let fileEnumerator = FileManager.default.enumerator(at: documentsDirectory, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil, options: FileManager.DirectoryEnumerationOptions()) else { return }
while let file = fileEnumerator.nextObject() {
    print(file)
}

Answer 2

Here's the slowest(?) approach:

NSFileManager * fileManager = [NSFileManager new];
NSArray * subpaths = [fileManager subpathsAtPath:path];

but that should at least point you to a more specialized implementation for your needs.

Slightly lower level abstractions which allow you to enumerate on demand include NSDirectoryEnumerator and CFURLEnumerator. Depending on the depth of the directory, these have the potential to save much unnecessary interactions with the filesystem, compared to -[NSFileManager subpathsAtPath:].

Answer 3

You can use NSDirectoryEnumerator via NSFileManager.enumeratorAtPath

From the docs:

NSString *docsDir = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:  @"Documents"];
NSFileManager *localFileManager=[[NSFileManager alloc] init];
NSDirectoryEnumerator *dirEnum =
    [localFileManager enumeratorAtPath:docsDir];

NSString *file;
while ((file = [dirEnum nextObject])) {
    if ([[file pathExtension] isEqualToString: @"doc"]) {
        // process the document
        [self scanDocument: [docsDir stringByAppendingPathComponent:file]];
    }
}

Answer 4

swift 3

    let fileManager:FileManager = FileManager()
    let files = fileManager.enumerator(atPath: NSHomeDirectory())
    while let file = files?.nextObject() {
        print("Files::",file)
    }