where to store media files in an iPhone app

Question

I am new to writing iPhone apps, but I have an idea for one. The only problem is that the app I want to write will require a ton of very tiny sound files. I want to organize everything in a hierarchy of folders in the app, but allow the user to add more sounds later, possibly from the music collection or something. Basically, the user needs to be able to add sound files, but the only way I see to have sound files in the app are if they are in the binary app.

Is anyone familiar with setting up an iPhone app that can access sound or media files from outside the iPhone app?

Answer 1

You can definitely do that. Start reading this document to get familiar with iPhone's audio and video APIs.

You can write all sorts of files into the phone's file system to store the sound files later.

Answer 2

You can't access files outside of your iphone app folder.

Answer 3

You can access files from outside your app bundle, it simply has to be in the document folder associated to your application.

Here is an example for fopening a file in the document folder (I code in Objective-C++)

FILE *fopenForDocument(std::string fileName, const char *mode) {
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    std::string s=[documentsDirectory cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
    s+="/"+fileName;
    FILE *file = fopen(s.c_str(),mode);
    if (file==NULL) {
     //LOG("failed to open file %s",fileName.c_str());
    }
    //LOG(s.c_str());
    return file;
}

In your case, the sounds that come with your application must be in the app bundle, and the sounds your users will later add must be located in the document folder.