NSTask NSPipe - objective c command line help

Question

Here is my code:

task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
[task setCurrentDirectoryPath:@\"/applications/jarvis/brain/\"];
[task setLaunchPath:@\"/applications/jarvis/b         


        

Answer 1

The solution above is freezing because it's synchronous. Call to [server waitUntilExit] blocks the run loop until the tasks is done.

Here's the async solution for getting the task output.

task.standardOutput = [NSPipe pipe];
[[task.standardOutput fileHandleForReading] setReadabilityHandler:^(NSFileHandle *file) {
    NSData *data = [file availableData]; // this will read to EOF, so call only once
    NSLog(@"Task output! %@", [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]);

    // if you're collecting the whole output of a task, you may store it on a property
    [self.taskOutput appendData:data];
}];

Probably you want to repeat the same above for task.standardError.

IMPORTANT:

When your task terminates, you have to set readabilityHandler block to nil; otherwise, you'll encounter high CPU usage, as the reading will never stop.

[task setTerminationHandler:^(NSTask *task) {

    // do your stuff on completion

    [task.standardOutput fileHandleForReading].readabilityHandler = nil;
    [task.standardError fileHandleForReading].readabilityHandler = nil;
}];

This is all asynchronous (and you should do it async), so your method should have a ^completion block.