How to find NSDocumentDirectory in Swift?

ios swift nsdocumentdirectory
Ivan R picture Ivan R · Jun 5, 2014 · Viewed 130.1k times · Source

I'm trying to get path to Documents folder with code:

var documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSSearchPathDirectory:0,NSSearchPathDomainMask:0,true)

but Xcode gives error: Cannot convert expression's type 'AnyObject[]!' to type 'NSSearchPathDirectory'

I'm trying to understand what is wrong in the code.

Answer

nschum picture nschum · Jun 5, 2014

Apparently, the compiler thinks NSSearchPathDirectory:0 is an array, and of course it expects the type NSSearchPathDirectory instead. Certainly not a helpful error message.

But as to the reasons:

First, you are confusing the argument names and types. Take a look at the function definition:

func NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(
    directory: NSSearchPathDirectory,
    domainMask: NSSearchPathDomainMask,
    expandTilde: Bool) -> AnyObject[]!
  • directory and domainMask are the names, you are using the types, but you should leave them out for functions anyway. They are used primarily in methods.
  • Also, Swift is strongly typed, so you shouldn't just use 0. Use the enum's value instead.
  • And finally, it returns an array, not just a single path.

So that leaves us with (updated for Swift 2.0):

let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)[0]

and for Swift 3:

let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory, .userDomainMask, true)[0]

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