Checking if a .nib or .xib file exists

Question

What's the best way to check if a Nib or Xib file exists before trying to load it using initWithNibName:bundle: or similar?

Answer 1

There are two solutions I see here.

You could just call initWithNibName:bundle: and catch an exception if it fails (I like this idea, it feels robust). You will probably want to verify that the exception is in fact a "file not found" exception rather than, say, an "out of memory" exception.

Alternatively, you could check the existence of the nib first, using NSBundle's pathForResource:ofType:, which returns nil for files that don't exist.

Answer 2

The actual solution used was:

if([[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:fileName ofType:@"nib"] != nil) 
{
//file found
...
}

Please note, the documentation states that ofType: should be the extension of the file. However even if you are using .xib you need to pass `@"nib" or you will get a false-negative.