Getting a list of files in a directory with a glob

Question

For some crazy reason I can t find a way to get a list of files with a glob for a given directory   I m currently stuck with something along the lines of   NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSArray  dirContents     NSFileManager defaultManager                           directoryContentsAtPath bundleRoot       and then stripping out the stuff I don t want  which sucks   But what I d really like is to be able to search for something like  foo  jpg  instead of asking for the entire directory  but I ve not been able to find anything like that   So how the heck do you do it

User · Answer

You need to roll your own method to eliminate the files you don't want.

This isn't easy with the built in tools, but you could use RegExKit Lite to assist with finding the elements in the returned array you are interested in. According to the release notes this should work in both Cocoa and Cocoa-Touch applications.

Here's the demo code I wrote up in about 10 minutes. I changed the < and > to " because they weren't showing up inside the pre block, but it still works with the quotes. Maybe somebody who knows more about formatting code here on StackOverflow will correct this (Chris?).

This is a "Foundation Tool" Command Line Utility template project. If I get my git daemon up and running on my home server I'll edit this post to add the URL for the project.

#import "Foundation/Foundation.h"
#import "RegexKit/RegexKit.h"

@interface MTFileMatcher : NSObject 
{
}
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    // insert code here...
    MTFileMatcher* matcher = [[[MTFileMatcher alloc] init] autorelease];
    [matcher getFilesMatchingRegEx:@"^.+\\.[Jj][Pp][Ee]?[Gg]$" forPath:[@"~/Pictures" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];

    [pool drain];
    return 0;
}

@implementation MTFileMatcher
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
{
    NSArray* filesAtPath = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] directoryContentsAtPath:inPath] arrayByMatchingObjectsWithRegex:inRegex];
    NSEnumerator* itr = [filesAtPath objectEnumerator];
    NSString* obj;
    while (obj = [itr nextObject])
    {
        NSLog(obj);
    }
}
@end

User · Answer

You need to roll your own method to eliminate the files you don't want.

This isn't easy with the built in tools, but you could use RegExKit Lite to assist with finding the elements in the returned array you are interested in. According to the release notes this should work in both Cocoa and Cocoa-Touch applications.

Here's the demo code I wrote up in about 10 minutes. I changed the < and > to " because they weren't showing up inside the pre block, but it still works with the quotes. Maybe somebody who knows more about formatting code here on StackOverflow will correct this (Chris?).

This is a "Foundation Tool" Command Line Utility template project. If I get my git daemon up and running on my home server I'll edit this post to add the URL for the project.

#import "Foundation/Foundation.h"
#import "RegexKit/RegexKit.h"

@interface MTFileMatcher : NSObject 
{
}
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    // insert code here...
    MTFileMatcher* matcher = [[[MTFileMatcher alloc] init] autorelease];
    [matcher getFilesMatchingRegEx:@"^.+\\.[Jj][Pp][Ee]?[Gg]$" forPath:[@"~/Pictures" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];

    [pool drain];
    return 0;
}

@implementation MTFileMatcher
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
{
    NSArray* filesAtPath = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] directoryContentsAtPath:inPath] arrayByMatchingObjectsWithRegex:inRegex];
    NSEnumerator* itr = [filesAtPath objectEnumerator];
    NSString* obj;
    while (obj = [itr nextObject])
    {
        NSLog(obj);
    }
}
@end

User · Answer

I won t pretend to be an expert on the topic  but you should have access to both the glob and wordexp function from objective-c  no

User · Answer

Swift 5 for cocoa             Getting the Contents of a Directory in a Single Batch Operation          let bundleRoot   Bundle main bundlePath         let url   URL string  bundleRoot          let properties   URLResourceKey      URLResourceKey localizedNameKey  URLResourceKey creationDateKey  URLResourceKey localizedTypeDescriptionKey          if let src   url              do                   let paths   try FileManager default contentsOfDirectory at  src  includingPropertiesForKeys  properties  options                       for p in paths                        if p hasSuffix   data                               print  File Path is    p                                                            catch

User · Answer

I won t pretend to be an expert on the topic  but you should have access to both the glob and wordexp function from objective-c  no

User · Answer

stringWithFileSystemRepresentation doesn t appear to be available in iOS

User · Answer

What about using NSString s hasSuffix and hasPrefix methods  Something like  if you re searching for  foo  jpg     NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSArray  dirContents     NSFileManager defaultManager  directoryContentsAtPath bundleRoot   for  NSString  tString in dirContents        if   tString hasPrefix   foo    amp  amp   tString hasSuffix    jpg                  do stuff            For simple  straightforward matches like that it would be simpler than using a regex library

User · Answer

You can achieve this pretty easily with the help of NSPredicate  like so   NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSFileManager  fm    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSArray  dirContents    fm contentsOfDirectoryAtPath bundleRoot error nil   NSPredicate  fltr    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   self ENDSWITH   jpg     NSArray  onlyJPGs    dirContents filteredArrayUsingPredicate fltr     If you need to do it with NSURL instead it looks like this   NSURL  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundleURL   NSArray   dirContents           fm contentsOfDirectoryAtURL bundleRoot         includingPropertiesForKeys                                 options NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles                              error nil   NSPredicate   fltr    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   pathExtension  jpg     NSArray   onlyJPGs    dirContents filteredArrayUsingPredicate fltr

User · Answer

What about using NSString s hasSuffix and hasPrefix methods  Something like  if you re searching for  foo  jpg     NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSArray  dirContents     NSFileManager defaultManager  directoryContentsAtPath bundleRoot   for  NSString  tString in dirContents        if   tString hasPrefix   foo    amp  amp   tString hasSuffix    jpg                  do stuff            For simple  straightforward matches like that it would be simpler than using a regex library

User · Answer

Swift 5  This works for cocoa          let bundleRoot   Bundle main bundlePath         let manager   FileManager default         let dirEnum   manager enumerator atPath  bundleRoot            while let filename   dirEnum  nextObject   as  String               if filename hasSuffix   data                    print  Files in resource folder    filename

User · Answer

You need to roll your own method to eliminate the files you don't want.

This isn't easy with the built in tools, but you could use RegExKit Lite to assist with finding the elements in the returned array you are interested in. According to the release notes this should work in both Cocoa and Cocoa-Touch applications.

Here's the demo code I wrote up in about 10 minutes. I changed the < and > to " because they weren't showing up inside the pre block, but it still works with the quotes. Maybe somebody who knows more about formatting code here on StackOverflow will correct this (Chris?).

This is a "Foundation Tool" Command Line Utility template project. If I get my git daemon up and running on my home server I'll edit this post to add the URL for the project.

#import "Foundation/Foundation.h"
#import "RegexKit/RegexKit.h"

@interface MTFileMatcher : NSObject 
{
}
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    // insert code here...
    MTFileMatcher* matcher = [[[MTFileMatcher alloc] init] autorelease];
    [matcher getFilesMatchingRegEx:@"^.+\\.[Jj][Pp][Ee]?[Gg]$" forPath:[@"~/Pictures" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];

    [pool drain];
    return 0;
}

@implementation MTFileMatcher
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
{
    NSArray* filesAtPath = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] directoryContentsAtPath:inPath] arrayByMatchingObjectsWithRegex:inRegex];
    NSEnumerator* itr = [filesAtPath objectEnumerator];
    NSString* obj;
    while (obj = [itr nextObject])
    {
        NSLog(obj);
    }
}
@end

User · Answer

I won t pretend to be an expert on the topic  but you should have access to both the glob and wordexp function from objective-c  no

User · Answer

I won t pretend to be an expert on the topic  but you should have access to both the glob and wordexp function from objective-c  no

User · Answer

Unix has a library that can perform file globbing operations for you   The functions and types are declared in a header called glob h  so you ll need to  include it   If open up a terminal an open the man page for glob by typing man 3 glob you ll get all of the information you need to know to use the functions   Below is an example of how you could populate an array the files that match a globbing pattern   When using the glob function there are a few things you need to keep in mind    By default  the glob function looks for files in the current working directory   In order to search another directory you ll need to prepend the directory name to the globbing pattern as I ve done in my example to get all of the files in  bin  You are responsible for cleaning up the memory allocated by glob by calling globfree when you re done with the structure    In my example I use the default options and no error callback   The man page covers all of the options in case there s something in there you want to use   If you re going to use the above code  I d suggest adding it as a category to NSArray or something like that   NSMutableArray  files    NSMutableArray array   glob t gt  char  pattern     bin     if  glob pattern  0  NULL   amp gt     0        int i      for  i 0  i lt gt gl matchc  i               files addObject   NSString stringWithCString  gt gl pathv i             globfree  amp gt   return  NSArray arrayWithArray  files     Edit  I ve created a gist on github that contains the above code in a category called NSArray Globbing

User · Answer

You need to roll your own method to eliminate the files you don't want.

This isn't easy with the built in tools, but you could use RegExKit Lite to assist with finding the elements in the returned array you are interested in. According to the release notes this should work in both Cocoa and Cocoa-Touch applications.

Here's the demo code I wrote up in about 10 minutes. I changed the < and > to " because they weren't showing up inside the pre block, but it still works with the quotes. Maybe somebody who knows more about formatting code here on StackOverflow will correct this (Chris?).

This is a "Foundation Tool" Command Line Utility template project. If I get my git daemon up and running on my home server I'll edit this post to add the URL for the project.

#import "Foundation/Foundation.h"
#import "RegexKit/RegexKit.h"

@interface MTFileMatcher : NSObject 
{
}
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
@end

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    // insert code here...
    MTFileMatcher* matcher = [[[MTFileMatcher alloc] init] autorelease];
    [matcher getFilesMatchingRegEx:@"^.+\\.[Jj][Pp][Ee]?[Gg]$" forPath:[@"~/Pictures" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];

    [pool drain];
    return 0;
}

@implementation MTFileMatcher
- (void)getFilesMatchingRegEx:(NSString*)inRegex forPath:(NSString*)inPath;
{
    NSArray* filesAtPath = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] directoryContentsAtPath:inPath] arrayByMatchingObjectsWithRegex:inRegex];
    NSEnumerator* itr = [filesAtPath objectEnumerator];
    NSString* obj;
    while (obj = [itr nextObject])
    {
        NSLog(obj);
    }
}
@end

User · Answer

stringWithFileSystemRepresentation doesn t appear to be available in iOS

User · Answer

Unix has a library that can perform file globbing operations for you   The functions and types are declared in a header called glob h  so you ll need to  include it   If open up a terminal an open the man page for glob by typing man 3 glob you ll get all of the information you need to know to use the functions   Below is an example of how you could populate an array the files that match a globbing pattern   When using the glob function there are a few things you need to keep in mind    By default  the glob function looks for files in the current working directory   In order to search another directory you ll need to prepend the directory name to the globbing pattern as I ve done in my example to get all of the files in  bin  You are responsible for cleaning up the memory allocated by glob by calling globfree when you re done with the structure    In my example I use the default options and no error callback   The man page covers all of the options in case there s something in there you want to use   If you re going to use the above code  I d suggest adding it as a category to NSArray or something like that   NSMutableArray  files    NSMutableArray array   glob t gt  char  pattern     bin     if  glob pattern  0  NULL   amp gt     0        int i      for  i 0  i lt gt gl matchc  i               files addObject   NSString stringWithCString  gt gl pathv i             globfree  amp gt   return  NSArray arrayWithArray  files     Edit  I ve created a gist on github that contains the above code in a category called NSArray Globbing

User · Answer

Swift 5 for cocoa             Getting the Contents of a Directory in a Single Batch Operation          let bundleRoot   Bundle main bundlePath         let url   URL string  bundleRoot          let properties   URLResourceKey      URLResourceKey localizedNameKey  URLResourceKey creationDateKey  URLResourceKey localizedTypeDescriptionKey          if let src   url              do                   let paths   try FileManager default contentsOfDirectory at  src  includingPropertiesForKeys  properties  options                       for p in paths                        if p hasSuffix   data                               print  File Path is    p                                                            catch

User · Answer

This works quite nicely for IOS  but should also work for cocoa   NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSFileManager  manager    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSDirectoryEnumerator  direnum    manager enumeratorAtPath bundleRoot   NSString  filename   while   filename    direnum nextObject              change the suffix to what you are looking for     if   filename hasSuffix    data                     Do work here         NSLog   Files in resource folder       filename

User · Answer

You can achieve this pretty easily with the help of NSPredicate  like so   NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSFileManager  fm    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSArray  dirContents    fm contentsOfDirectoryAtPath bundleRoot error nil   NSPredicate  fltr    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   self ENDSWITH   jpg     NSArray  onlyJPGs    dirContents filteredArrayUsingPredicate fltr     If you need to do it with NSURL instead it looks like this   NSURL  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundleURL   NSArray   dirContents           fm contentsOfDirectoryAtURL bundleRoot         includingPropertiesForKeys                                 options NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles                              error nil   NSPredicate   fltr    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   pathExtension  jpg     NSArray   onlyJPGs    dirContents filteredArrayUsingPredicate fltr

User · Answer

This works quite nicely for IOS  but should also work for cocoa   NSString  bundleRoot     NSBundle mainBundle  bundlePath   NSFileManager  manager    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSDirectoryEnumerator  direnum    manager enumeratorAtPath bundleRoot   NSString  filename   while   filename    direnum nextObject              change the suffix to what you are looking for     if   filename hasSuffix    data                     Do work here         NSLog   Files in resource folder       filename

User · Answer

Very Simplest Method    NSArray  paths   NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains NSDocumentDirectory                                                        NSUserDomainMask  YES   NSString  documentsDirectory    paths objectAtIndex 0    NSFileManager  manager    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSArray  fileList    manager contentsOfDirectoryAtPath documentsDirectory                                                   error nil     --- Listing file by name sort NSLog    n File list     fileList      ---- Sorting files by extension     NSArray  filePathsArray        NSFileManager defaultManager  subpathsOfDirectoryAtPath documentsDirectory                                                         error nil   NSPredicate  predicate    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   SELF EndsWith   png     filePathsArray     filePathsArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate predicate   NSLog    n n Sorted files by extension     filePathsArray

User · Answer

Swift 5  This works for cocoa          let bundleRoot   Bundle main bundlePath         let manager   FileManager default         let dirEnum   manager enumerator atPath  bundleRoot            while let filename   dirEnum  nextObject   as  String               if filename hasSuffix   data                    print  Files in resource folder    filename

User · Answer

Very Simplest Method    NSArray  paths   NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains NSDocumentDirectory                                                        NSUserDomainMask  YES   NSString  documentsDirectory    paths objectAtIndex 0    NSFileManager  manager    NSFileManager defaultManager   NSArray  fileList    manager contentsOfDirectoryAtPath documentsDirectory                                                   error nil     --- Listing file by name sort NSLog    n File list     fileList      ---- Sorting files by extension     NSArray  filePathsArray        NSFileManager defaultManager  subpathsOfDirectoryAtPath documentsDirectory                                                         error nil   NSPredicate  predicate    NSPredicate predicateWithFormat   SELF EndsWith   png     filePathsArray     filePathsArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate predicate   NSLog    n n Sorted files by extension     filePathsArray

[ios] Getting a list of files in a directory with a glob

Examples related to ios

Examples related to objective-c

Examples related to iphone

Examples related to cocoa

Examples related to cocoa-touch