writing NSArray back to plist

Question

I have a plist with the following format:

And here's how I read it:

NSString *errorDesc = nil;
    NSPropertyListFormat format;

    NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"States" ofType:@"plist"];    
    NSData  *plistXML = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] contentsAtPath:path];
    NSDictionary *temp = (NSDictionary *)[NSPropertyListSerialization                     
                                          propertyListFromData:plistXML
                                          mutabilityOption:NSPropertyListMutableContainersAndLeaves
                                          format:&format
                                          errorDescription:&errorDesc];

    self.statesData = [temp objectForKey:@"Root"];

The question is if I want to write this NSMutableArray called self.statesData back to the plist, how would I do it? I am guessing something like this wouldn't work...

 NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"States" ofType:@"plist"];  
    [self.main.statesData writeToFile:path atomically: YES];

Answer 1

You can not write the app's bundle, you need to write to the app's Document directory.

Sample code:

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

BOOL status = [array writeToFile:filePath atomically:YES];

If you have initial dad in the app bundle on first run copy it to the Documents directory and make all further accesses to the Documents directory.