A great way to store dictionary data that does not change during runtime is in a .plist file. Say you want to organize some data hierarchically or you want to store the navigation structure of a drill-down somewhere more convenient (see drill-down save example in apple docs), then a .plist file is a great way to go.
Here’s a quick example of how to restore data from a plist file. I’ll use a plist file that you can find in every app out there: Info.plist
Sometimes it’s useful to display a version number on a splash view and here’s how you can do that using the Info.plist CFBundleVersion value.
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];
NSString *finalPath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Info.plist"];
NSDictionary *plistData = [[NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:finalPath] retain];
versionLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100,100,60,25)]; // for example
versionLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
versionLabel.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
versionLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:10];
NSString *versionString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"v%@", [plistData objectForKey:@"CFBundleVersion"]];
versionLabel.text = versionString;
[self.view addSubview:versionLabel];
the above content is from http://www.icodeblog.com/2009/02/14/loading-data-from-plist-files/, I try the code , but not work, the Nslog show that I got the path is the simulator path, It seems the "NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundlePath];" doesn't work correctly. Then I fix the code like this:
NSArray *documentPaths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentDir = [documentPaths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *plistPath = [documentDir stringByAppendingPathComponent: @"data.plist"];
NSDictionary *plistData = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile: MetalPlistPath];
NSString *serverString = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@", [plistDataobjectForKey: @"SERVER"]];
NSLog(@"plist path: %@", plistPath);
NSLog(@"data.plist value SERVER: %@", serverString);