What does the /private prefix on an iOS file path indicate?

Question

I have a bug when my app runs on the iPhone but not when it runs on the simulator. I was using the length of the home directory path to extract the relative path of a file in /Documents. Unfortunately this doesn't always work correctly on the iPhone because the prefix "/private" is being added to the home path. However, with or without the prefix, the same file is referenced ok. The following code demonstrates this inconsistency. What is the purpose of "/private" and when is it supplied by iOS?

- (IBAction)testHomepath:(id)sender {
    NSFileManager *fmgr = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
    NSString  *homePath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/Documents",NSHomeDirectory()];
    NSString  *dirPath  = [homePath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"TempDir"];
    NSURL     *dirURL   = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:dirPath];
    NSString  *filePath = [dirPath  stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"test.jpg"];
    [fmgr createDirectoryAtPath:dirPath withIntermediateDirectories:NO attributes:nil error:nil];
    [fmgr createFileAtPath:filePath contents:nil attributes:nil];
    NSArray *keys  = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:NSURLNameKey,nil];
    NSArray *files = [fmgr contentsOfDirectoryAtURL:dirURL includingPropertiesForKeys:keys options:0 error:nil];
    NSURL *f1 = (files.count>0)? [files objectAtIndex:0] : 0;
    NSURL *f2 = (files.count>1)? [files objectAtIndex:1] : 0;
    bool   b0 = [fmgr fileExistsAtPath:filePath];
    bool   b1 = [fmgr fileExistsAtPath:f1.path];
    bool   b2 = [fmgr fileExistsAtPath:f2.path];

    NSLog(@"File exists=%d at path:%@",b0,filePath);
    NSLog(@"File exists=%d at path:%@",b1,f1.path);
    NSLog(@"File exists=%d at path:%@",b2,f2.path);
}

The following is written to the log when running on the iPhone. I manually spaced the output to show the difference between lines 1 and 2.

2013-02-20 16:31:26.615 Test1[4059:907] File exists=1 at path:        /var/mobile/Applications/558B5D82-ACEB-457D-8A70-E6E00DB3A484/Documents/TempDir/test.jpg
2013-02-20 16:31:26.622 Test1[4059:907] File exists=1 at path:/private/var/mobile/Applications/558B5D82-ACEB-457D-8A70-E6E00DB3A484/Documents/TempDir/test.jpg
2013-02-20 16:31:26.628 Test1[4059:907] File exists=0 at path:(null)

The following is written to the log when running on the simulator (no "/private"):

2013-02-20 16:50:38.730 Test1[7224:c07] File exists=1 at path:/Users/kenm/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Applications/C6FDE177-958C-4BF5-8770-A4D3FBD281F1/Documents/TempDir/test.jpg
2013-02-20 16:50:38.732 Test1[7224:c07] File exists=1 at path:/Users/kenm/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Applications/C6FDE177-958C-4BF5-8770-A4D3FBD281F1/Documents/TempDir/.DS_Store
2013-02-20 16:50:38.733 Test1[7224:c07] File exists=1 at path:/Users/kenm/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Applications/C6FDE177-958C-4BF5-8770-A4D3FBD281F1/Documents/TempDir/test.jpg

Answer 1

I tried this from the debugger and discovered that URLByResolvingSymlinksInPath "fixes" the /private/ addition.

(lldb) p (NSURL *)[NSURL fileURLWithPath:@"/private/var" isDirectory:YES]
(NSURL *) $1 = 0x1fd9fc20 @"file://localhost/private/var/"
(lldb) po [$1 URLByResolvingSymlinksInPath]
$2 = 0x1fda0190 file://localhost/var/

(lldb) p (NSURL *)[NSURL fileURLWithPath:@"/var" isDirectory:YES]
(NSURL *) $7 = 0x1fd9fee0 @"file://localhost/var/"
(lldb) po [$7 URLByResolvingSymlinksInPath]
$8 = 0x1fda2f50 file://localhost/var/

as you can see, file://localhost/var is what we really want here.

Because of this, it seemed obvious that /private/var is a symlink to /var. However, @Kevin-Ballard points out that is not true. I confirmed that he is correct, and /var is the symlink to /private/var (sigh)

(lldb) p (NSDictionary *)[[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfItemAtPath:@"/var" error:nil]
(NSDictionary *) $3 = 0x1fda11b0 13 key/value pairs
(lldb) po $3
$3 = 0x1fda11b0 {
    ...
    NSFileType = NSFileTypeSymbolicLink;
}

(lldb) p (NSDictionary *)[[NSFileManager defaultManager]   attributesOfItemAtPath:@"/private/var" error:nil]
(NSDictionary *) $5 = 0x1fda4820 14 key/value pairs
(lldb) po $5
$5 = 0x1fda4820 {
    ...
    NSFileType = NSFileTypeDirectory;
}

So URLByResolvingSymlinksInPath is doing something funny here, but now we know. For this particular problem, URLByResolvingSymlinksInPath still sounds like a good solution that works for both the simulator and the device and should continue to work in the future if something changes.