[oexel]

i have an interesting question. When I feed a path that starts with ~/ to FSPathMakeRef() i get a -43 error....file not found.

The program I'm writing needs to access the current user's library folder so I cant think of any other way of doing this other than using the ~/library/ path. Does anyone have any suggestion on work arounds.

thanx

[tobli]

If you're using cocoa you can check out the NSString method stringByExpandingTildeInPath: or the Foundation function NSHomeDirectory()

[smeger]

Form a file URL for your path using either NSURL or CFURlRef (they're toll-free bridgable to one another, so you can just cast from one to the other). Use CFURLGetFSRef to get your FSRef. There is no step three.

[oexel]

i dont see how using CFURL helps me. It wont aceept a path that starts with ~/. What I need is a carbon version of that cocoa tilde expansion function. Can anyone help?

[Angus_D]

Code:
#include <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <pwd.h>

CFURLRef FDHomeDirectory( void );
CFURLRef FDHomeDirectoryForUserID( uid_t uid );
CFStringRef FDStringByReplacingTildeInPath( CFStringRef theString );

CFURLRef FDHomeDirectory( void )
{
    return FDHomeDirectoryForUserID( geteuid() );
}

CFURLRef FDHomeDirectoryForUserID( uid_t uid )
{
    struct passwd *pw = getpwuid( uid );
    if (pw != NULL)
        return CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation( NULL, pw->pw_dir, strlen(pw->pw_dir), true );
    else
        return NULL;
}

CFStringRef FDStringByReplacingTildeInPath( CFStringRef theString )
{
    if ( CFStringHasPrefix( theString,  CFSTR("~/") ) )
    {
        CFMutableStringRef mutableString = CFStringCreateMutableCopy( NULL, PATH_MAX, theString );
        CFStringReplace( mutableString, CFRangeMake( 0, 1 ), CFURLCopyFileSystemPath( FDHomeDirectory(), kCFURLPOSIXPathStyle) );
        return mutableString;
    } else {
        return theString;
    }
}

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    // insert code here...
    CFStringRef string = CFSTR("~/Desktop");
    CFShow( FDStringByReplacingTildeInPath( string ) );
    return 0;
}

Fixing the leaks is left as an exercise for the reader.