Getting alias path of file in swift

Question

I\'m having trouble resolving the alias link on mac. I\'m checking if the file is an alias and then I would want to receive the original path. Instead I\'m only getting a Fi

Answer 1

vadian's answer works great on OS X 10.10+.

Here's an implementation that also works on OS X 10.9:

// OSX 10.9+
// Resolves a Finder alias to its full target path.
// If the given path is not a Finder alias, its *own* full path is returned.
// If the input path doesn't exist or any other error occurs, nil is returned.
func resolveFinderAlias(path: String) -> String? {
  let fUrl = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: path)
  var targetPath:String? = nil
  if (fUrl.fileReferenceURL() != nil) { // item exists
    do {
        // Get information about the file alias.
        // If the file is not an alias files, an exception is thrown
        // and execution continues in the catch clause.
        let data = try NSURL.bookmarkDataWithContentsOfURL(fUrl)
        // NSURLPathKey contains the target path.
        let rv = NSURL.resourceValuesForKeys([ NSURLPathKey ], fromBookmarkData: data) 
        targetPath = rv![NSURLPathKey] as! String?
    } catch {
        // We know that the input path exists, but treating it as an alias 
        // file failed, so we assume it's not an alias file and return its
        // *own* full path.
        targetPath = fUrl.path
    }
  }
  return targetPath
}

Note:

• Unlike vadian's solution, this will return a value even for non-alias files, namely that file's own full path, and takes a path string rather than a NSURL instance as input.

• vadian's solution requires appropriate entitlements in order to use the function in a sandboxed application/environment. It seems that this one at least doesn't need that to the same extent, as it will run in an Xcode Playground, unlike vadian's solution. ^{If someone can shed light on this, please help.}

  • Either solution, however, does run in a shell script with shebang line #!/usr/bin/env swift.

• If you want to explicitly test whether a given path is a Finder alias, see this answer, which is derived from vadian's, but due to its narrower focus also runs on 10.9.