Real time NSTask output to NSTextView with Swift

Question

I'm using an NSTask to run rsync, and I'd like the status to show up in the text view of a scroll view inside a window. Right now I have this:

let pipe = NSPipe()
task2.standardOutput = pipe
task2.launch()

let data = pipe.fileHandleForReading.readDataToEndOfFile()
let output: String = NSString(data: data, encoding: NSASCIIStringEncoding)! as String

textView.string = output

And that get's me the some of the statistics about the transfer, but I'd like to get the output in real time, like what get's printed out when I run the app in Xcode, and put it into the text view. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

(See Patrick F.'s answer for an update to Swift 3/4.)

You can read asynchronously from a pipe, using notifications. Here is a simple example demonstrating how it works, hopefully that helps you to get started:

let task = NSTask()
task.launchPath = "/bin/sh"
task.arguments = ["-c", "echo 1 ; sleep 1 ; echo 2 ; sleep 1 ; echo 3 ; sleep 1 ; echo 4"]

let pipe = NSPipe()
task.standardOutput = pipe
let outHandle = pipe.fileHandleForReading
outHandle.waitForDataInBackgroundAndNotify()

var obs1 : NSObjectProtocol!
obs1 = NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserverForName(NSFileHandleDataAvailableNotification,
    object: outHandle, queue: nil) {  notification -> Void in
        let data = outHandle.availableData
        if data.length > 0 {
            if let str = NSString(data: data, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
                print("got output: \(str)")
            }
            outHandle.waitForDataInBackgroundAndNotify()
        } else {
            print("EOF on stdout from process")
            NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().removeObserver(obs1)
        }
}

var obs2 : NSObjectProtocol!
obs2 = NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserverForName(NSTaskDidTerminateNotification,
    object: task, queue: nil) { notification -> Void in
        print("terminated")
        NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().removeObserver(obs2)
}

task.launch()

Instead of print("got output: \(str)") you can append the received string to your text view.

The above code assumes that a runloop is active (which is the case in a default Cocoa application).

Answer 2

Since macOS 10.7, there's also the readabilityHandler property on NSPipe which you can use to set a callback for when new data is available:

let task = NSTask()

task.launchPath = "/bin/sh"
task.arguments = ["-c", "echo 1 ; sleep 1 ; echo 2 ; sleep 1 ; echo 3 ; sleep 1 ; echo 4"]

let pipe = NSPipe()
task.standardOutput = pipe
let outHandle = pipe.fileHandleForReading

outHandle.readabilityHandler = { pipe in
    if let line = String(data: pipe.availableData, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) {
        // Update your view with the new text here
        print("New ouput: \(line)")
    } else {
        print("Error decoding data: \(pipe.availableData)")
    }
}

task.launch()

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this, as it's a lot simpler.

Answer 3

This is the update version of Martin's answer above for the latest version of Swift.

    let task = Process()
    task.launchPath = "/bin/sh"
    task.arguments = ["-c", "echo 1 ; sleep 1 ; echo 2 ; sleep 1 ; echo 3 ; sleep 1 ; echo 4"]

    let pipe = Pipe()
    task.standardOutput = pipe
    let outHandle = pipe.fileHandleForReading
    outHandle.waitForDataInBackgroundAndNotify()

    var obs1 : NSObjectProtocol!
    obs1 = NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(forName: NSNotification.Name.NSFileHandleDataAvailable,
       object: outHandle, queue: nil) {  notification -> Void in
        let data = outHandle.availableData
        if data.count > 0 {
            if let str = NSString(data: data, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue) {
                print("got output: \(str)")
            }
            outHandle.waitForDataInBackgroundAndNotify()
        } else {
            print("EOF on stdout from process")
            NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(obs1)
        }
    }

    var obs2 : NSObjectProtocol!
    obs2 = NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(forName: Process.didTerminateNotification,
               object: task, queue: nil) { notification -> Void in
                print("terminated")
                NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(obs2)
        }
    task.launch()