Creating separate files

Question

I am looking for a way to create separate files. For example: I have an application which has a form such as name, date etc. and when I press save, I want to save all the information in that form of the user into a file. Each time the form is filled in, I want a new file to be created for each user. The file will be saved in the documents directory of the application. The name of the file should come from the 'name' textfield of the form. I have looked at ways to create files in swift but the filename is always hardcoded in the path url and every time the form is filled out the information gets saved on the same file. I don't want to do this. Any solution or advice is appreciated, I can't seem to find any solution to this online (only how to create a file with a hardcoded file name, which I am already able to do).

import UIKit

class FormViewController: UIViewController {

    @IBOutlet weak var organdonationno: UITextField!
    @IBOutlet weak var donorage: UITextField!
    @IBOutlet weak var snodname: UITextField!
    @IBOutlet weak var donorshospital: UITextField!
    @IBOutlet weak var date: UITextField!
    @IBOutlet weak var ID: UITextField!

    var fileMgr: FileManager = FileManager.default
    var docsDir: String?
    var dataFile: String?

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        let filemgr = FileManager.default
        let dirPaths = filemgr.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)
        dataFile = dirPaths[0].appendingPathComponent("path").path
        if filemgr.fileExists(atPath: dataFile!) {
            let databuffer1 = filemgr.contents(atPath: dataFile!)
            let databuffer2 = filemgr.contents(atPath: dataFile!)
            let databuffer3 = filemgr.contents(atPath: dataFile!)
            let databuffer4 = filemgr.contents(atPath: dataFile!)
            let databuffer5 = filemgr.contents(atPath: dataFile!)

            let datastring1 = NSString(data: databuffer1!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)
            let datastring2 = NSString(data: databuffer2!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)
            let datastring3 = NSString(data: databuffer3!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)
            let datastring4 = NSString(data: databuffer4!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)
            let datastring5 = NSString(data: databuffer5!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue)

            organdonationno.text = datastring1 as? String
            donorage.text = datastring2 as? String
            snodname.text = datastring3 as? String
            donorshospital.text = datastring4 as? String
            date.text = datastring5 as? String
        }
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
    }

    @IBAction func savdata(_ sender: Any) {
        let databuffer1 = (organdonationno.text)!.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
         let databuffer2 = (donorage.text)!.data(using:  String.Encoding.utf8)
         let databuffer3 = (snodname.text)!.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
         let databuffer4 = (donorshospital.text)!.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
         let databuffer5 = (date.text)!.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)

        fileMgr.createFile(atPath: dataFile!, contents: databuffer1, attributes: nil)
        fileMgr.createFile(atPath: dataFile!, contents: databuffer2, attributes: nil)
        fileMgr.createFile(atPath: dataFile!, contents: databuffer3, attributes: nil)
        fileMgr.createFile(atPath: dataFile!, contents: databuffer4, attributes: nil)
        fileMgr.createFile(atPath: dataFile!, contents: databuffer5, attributes: nil)

    }
}

Answer 1

It only saves dates because you are creating file for every field by the same name. It overwritten by new file every time. Last file u create is of date, hence only date persists.If you want to save all form data for one user you can do it as below. You need to create dynamic filename for every form so it is overwritten.

@IBAction func savdata(_ sender: Any) {

 let fileName="\(organdonationno.text) + \(donorage.text) + \(snodname.text) + \(donorshospital.text) + (date.text) "

 let file = "\(fileName).txt" //this is the file. we will write to and read from it

 let text = fileName //just a text

 if let dir = FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask).first {

 let path = dir.appendingPathComponent(file)

 //writing
 do {
    try text.write(to: path, atomically: false, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8)
  }
  catch {/* error handling here */}

  //reading
  do {
     let text2 = try String(contentsOf: path, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8)
  }
 catch {/* error handling here */}
}

------EDIT--------

To remove Optional word to need to force unwrap the value by putting exclamation mark (!) after the object to need to unwrap.

 var canBeNil : String? = "shubhra"
 print(canBeNil)  // output Optional("shubhra")
 print(canBeNil!)  // output shubhra

if you need title as organdonationno just edit :

 let fileName="\(organdonationno.text)"
 let text = "\(organdonationno.text) + \(donorage.text) + \(snodname.text) + \(donorshospital.text) + (date.text) "

Just make sure your filename is unique so that is not overwritten.

Hope it helps. Happy Coding!!

Answer 2

My solution seems similar above. You'd better use the info your user input from textfields to organize a unique name of your file. And I strongly recommend you to write a model to stored your property, and do the saving to disk job for your coding clearness' sake. I can give you an example I just wrote on my playground:

struct User {
let organdonationno: NSString
let donorage: NSString
let snodName: NSString
let donorshospital: NSString
let date: NSString
let ID: NSString

func saveToJSONFile() {
    guard let documentDirectoryUrl = FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask).first else { return }

    let pathComponent = ID.appending(".json")

    let array = NSArray(array: [organdonationno, donorage, snodName, donorshospital, date, ID])

    let fileURL = documentDirectoryUrl.appendingPathComponent(pathComponent)

    do {
        let data = try JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: array, options: [])
        try data.write(to: fileURL, options: .atomic)
    }
    catch {
        print(error)
    }
}

}

The code I'm writing is put the struct's properties into an NSArray that it can be easily serialized as a JSON object. JSON is a type of well-displayed data structure. When it's written to your disk file, you can open the .json file to see inside. It will be like [ string1, string2, string3, string4, string5, string6] thing, which is pretty easy to understand.
and you can use it this way:

let user = User(organdonationno: datastring1, donorage: datastring2, snodName: datastring3, donorshospital: datastring4, date: datastring5, ID: datastring6)
user.saveToJSONFile()

If you're using swift 4, there is a convenient way to turn the User struct in to JSON object. You just need to let the User conform to Codable, and the apple's underlying implementation will do all of the work.

Struct User: Codable {