I wanted to be able to add a dependency to another project using code and I came up with this:
-- Setting Dependencies Test
-- Use this function to perform your initial setup
function setup()
PROJECTNAME = "Setting Dependencies Test"
getDependencies()
addDependency(PROJECTNAME, "Briarfox Scores")
end
-- This function gets called once every frame
function draw()
-- This sets a dark background color
background(40, 40, 50)
end
function getDependencies()
local projectName = PROJECTNAME
local path = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/Documents/"
local file = io.open(path .. projectName .. ".codea/Info.plist","r")
if (file) then
local plist = file:read("*all"):gsub("[\\t\
]","")
file:close()
if plist:match("Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>") then
for dep in plist:match("Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>"):gmatch("<string>(.-)</string>") do
print("Found Dependency: "..dep)
end
end
end
end
function addDependency(projectName, dependency)
local path = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/Documents/"
local fileName = path .. projectName .. ".codea/Info.plist"
local read = io.open(fileName, "r")
if (read) then
print("Adding " .. dependency .. " to " .. projectName)
local plist = read:read("*all"):gsub("[\\t\
]","")
read:close()
local needToAdd
local a, start = plist:find("<key>Dependencies</key><array>")
local send, b = plist:find("</array>")
local mid = plist:match("<key>Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>")
if start == nil then
a, start = plist:find("<key>Dependencies</key>")
send, b = plist:find("<array/>")
mid = ""
needToAdd = true
end
local before = plist:sub(1, start)
local after = plist:sub(send, plist:len())
if needToAdd then
before = before .. "<array>"
after = after:gsub("<array/>", "</array>")
end
local new = before .. "<string>" .. dependency .. "</string>" .. mid .. after
local write = io.open(fileName, "w")
write:write(new)
write:close()
getDependencies()
end
end
It works in that when I check again it finds the one I added, but when I return to the code, the dependency is not added. I am wondering, is it not possible to save changes to Info.plist? If so, why?
I had completely forgotten that you could do this type of stuff in Codea, despite the fact that I discovered it (more like what you can access with Lua file io and unboxing Codea). Nice example.
Thanks!
It was my understanding that .plist files were in binary format and had to be converted to XML. Does Codea do this on the fly? or, this may be your issue…
@syntonica - I’m not quite sure what you mean, but the .plist files (which are XML, with Apple’s standard for storing dictionary-like-variabels (if you don’t know what those are, don’t work, it’s not Codea related)) in Codea projects hold things like the name, author, dependencies, and any other metadata that you want to hold. I probably just told you something that you’re not asking, but I might as well say it.
Thanks!
@JakAttak - Have you tried restarting Codea? If not, see if the file is actually affected with iExplorer. (I didn’t see you had an issue with the code.)
@JakAttak i have noticed that when i make / modify a file in whatever folder different from ‘documents’, then
-1/ it seem ok as long as the program runs.
-2/ when i re-run it the changes were not saved.
I thinks this is the Apple security system. Only the ‘document’ folder is ‘sandboxed’ so we can do what we want in it.
I use the info.plist in a backup program that I posted a while back. I use the dependency information to determine which files to backup. One odd thing I noticed about the dependencies is that if a project is deleted, you can’t remove it from the dependency list. You have to recreate a dummy project with that name, remove it from the dependency list, then delete the project.
@JakAttack apparently only creating files in the top level of document folder is authorized. Not modifying sub folders. From my experience only, not read that anywhere.
@Jmv38 if this limitations is imposed by Apple then how does Codea edit it to save dependencies? And if it is actually imposed by Codea/TLL then perhaps @Simeon or @John can explain why.
@Zoyt My mistake! I seem to remember that .plist files were stored in a special binary format, but that’s probably Android. LOL!
I had to pull a .plist out of Preview and open it in a hex editor to be sure. Sometimes, there’s translation going on in the background. However, the file is pure text with no header.
Am I missing something or maybe not reading this right. I created 2 test projects, test1 and test2. I took the above program and added the dependency test1 into project test2. I went into project test2 and it showed that project test1 was checked as a dependency. So it looks like the above program is working.
EDIT: I tried it again, but now It doesn’t seem to work. I have to figure out why.
EDIT: It looks like the above program is dropping the newline characters. I don’t know why it worked the first time.
@dave1707, you are right! It only doesn’t work on the project it is in, any other project works fine. I updated the code to allow adding multiple, before it screwed it up. Here is the working code:
-- Setting Dependencies Test
-- Use this function to perform your initial setup
function setup()
PROJECTNAME = "Test2"
getDependencies(PROJECTNAME)
addDependency(PROJECTNAME, "Briarfox Scores")
addDependency(PROJECTNAME, "Test3")
addDependency(PROJECTNAME, "Test4")
end
-- This function gets called once every frame
function draw()
-- This sets a dark background color
background(40, 40, 50)
end
function getDependencies(projectName)
local path = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/Documents/"
local file = io.open(path .. projectName .. ".codea/Info.plist","r")
if (file) then
local plist = file:read("*all"):gsub("[\\t\
]","")
file:close()
if plist:match("Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>") then
for dep in plist:match("Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>"):gmatch("<string>(.-)</string>") do
print("Found Dependency: "..dep)
end
end
end
end
function addDependency(projectName, dependency)
local path = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/Documents/"
local fileName = path .. projectName .. ".codea/Info.plist"
local read = io.open(fileName, "r")
if (read) then
print("Adding " .. dependency .. " to " .. projectName)
local plist = read:read("*all"):gsub("[\\t\
]","")
read:close()
local needToAdd
local a, start = plist:find("<key>Dependencies</key><array>")
local s
if start ~= nil then s = start else s = 1 end
local send, b = plist:find("</array>", s)
local mid = plist:match("<key>Dependencies</key><array>(.-)</array>")
if start == nil then
a, start = plist:find("<key>Dependencies</key>")
local s
if start ~= nil then s = start else s = 1 end
send, b = plist:find("<array/>", s)
mid = ""
needToAdd = true
end
if start == nil then
a, start = plist:find("<key>Created</key><string>(.-)</string>")
send, b = plist:find("<key>Description</key>", start)
mid = ""
needToAddFull = true
end
local before = plist:sub(1, start)
local after = plist:sub(send, plist:len())
if needToAdd and not needToAddFull then
before = before .. "<array>"
after = after:gsub("<array/>", "</array>")
elseif needToAddFull then
before = before .. "<key>Dependencies</key><array>"
after = "</array>" .. after
end
local new = before .. "<string>" .. dependency .. "</string>" .. mid .. after
if plist:find("<string>" .. dependency .. "</string>") == nil then
local write = io.open(fileName, "w")
write:write(new)
write:close()
end
getDependencies(projectName)
end
end
