iPhone (iOS): copying files from main bundle to documents folder causes crash

Question

I am trying to set up my application so that on first launch, a series of files located in the \"Populator\" folder in the main bundle are copied into the documents director

Answer 1

   NSError *error;

You are declaring a local variable without initializing it. Therefore, it will be filled with garbage.

  [[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:sourcePath 
                                        toPath:folderPath
                                         error:&error];

If no error occurs on this line, the garbage status of error would still remain.

  NSLog(@"Error description-%@ \n", [error localizedDescription]);

Now you send a message to some random, uninitialized location. This is the source of the crash.

---

To avoid this, initialize error to nil.

NSError* error = nil;
//             ^^^^^

Or print the error only when -copyItemAtPath:… returns NO (in which the error is correctly populated).

if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:sourcePath ...]) {
  NSLog(...); 
}