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org.apache.cordova.file

This plugin provides the HTML5 Filesystem API. For usage, refer to HTML5 Rocks' FileSystem article on the subject. For an overview of other storage options, refer to Cordova's storage guide.

Installation

cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.file

Supported Platforms

  • Amazon Fire OS
  • Android
  • BlackBerry 10*
  • iOS
  • Windows Phone 7 and 8*
  • Windows 8*

* These platforms do not support FileReader.readAsArrayBuffer nor FileWriter.write(blob).

Android Quirks

Android Persistent storage location

There are multiple valid locations to store persistent files on an Android device. See this page for an extensive discussion of the various possibilities.

Previous versions of the plugin would choose the location of the temporary and persistent files on startup, based on whether the device claimed that the SD Card (or equivalent storage partition) was mounted. If the SD Card was mounted, or if a large internal storage partition was available (such as on Nexus devices,) then the persistent files would be stored in the root of that space. This meant that all Cordova apps could see all of the files available on the card.

If the SD card was not available, then previous versions would store data under /data/data/, which isolates apps from each other, but may still cause data to be shared between users.

It is now possible to choose whether to store files in the internal file storage location, or using the previous logic, with a preference in your application's config.xml file. To do this, add one of these two lines to config.xml:

<preference name="AndroidPersistentFileLocation" value="Internal" />

<preference name="AndroidPersistentFileLocation" value="Compatibility" />

Without this line, the File plugin will use "Compatibility" as the default. If a preference tag is present, and is not one of these values, the application will not start.

If your application has previously been shipped to users, using an older (pre- 1.0) version of this plugin, and has stored files in the persistent filesystem, then you should set the preference to "Compatibility". Switching the location to "Internal" would mean that existing users who upgrade their application may be unable to access their previously-stored files, depending on their device.

If your application is new, or has never previously stored files in the persistent filesystem, then the "internal" setting is generally recommended.

BlackBerry Quirks

DirectoryEntry.removeRecursively() may fail with a ControlledAccessException in the following cases:

  • An app attempts to access a directory created by a previous installation of the app.

Solution: ensure temporary directories are cleaned manually, or by the application prior to reinstallation.

  • If the device is connected by USB.

Solution: disconnect the USB cable from the device and run again.

iOS Quirks

  • FileReader.readAsText(blob, encoding)
    • The encoding parameter is not supported, and UTF-8 encoding is always in effect.

iOS Persistent storage location

There are two valid locations to store persistent files on an iOS device: the Documents directory and the Library directory. Previous versions of the plugin only ever stored persistent files in the Documents directory. This had the side-effect of making all of an application's files visible in iTunes, which was often unintended, especially for applications which handle lots of small files, rather than producing complete documents for export, which is the intended purpose of the directory.

It is now possible to choose whether to store files in the documents or library directory, with a preference in your application's config.xml file. To do this, add one of these two lines to config.xml:

<preference name="iosPersistentFileLocation" value="Library" />

<preference name="iosPersistentFileLocation" value="Compatibility" />

Without this line, the File plugin will use "Compatibility" as the default. If a preference tag is present, and is not one of these values, the application will not start.

If your application has previously been shipped to users, using an older (pre- 1.0) version of this plugin, and has stored files in the persistent filesystem, then you should set the preference to "Compatibility". Switching the location to "Library" would mean that existing users who upgrade their application would be unable to access their previously-stored files.

If your application is new, or has never previously stored files in the persistent filesystem, then the "Library" setting is generally recommended.

Upgrading Notes

In v1.0.0 of this plugin, the FileEntry and DirectoryEntry structures have changed, to be more in line with the published specification.

Previous (pre-1.0.0) versions of the plugin stored the device-absolute-file-location in the fullPath property of Entry objects. These paths would typically look like

/var/mobile/Applications/<application UUID>/Documents/path/to/file  (iOS)
/storage/emulated/0/path/to/file                                    (Android)

These paths were also returned by the toURL() method of the Entry objects.

With v1.0.0, the fullPath attribute is the path to the file, relative to the root of the HTML filesystem. So, the above paths would now both be represented by a FileEntry object with a fullPath of

/path/to/file

If your application works with device-absolute-paths, and you previously retrieved those paths through the fullPath property of Entry objects, then you should update your code to use entry.toURL() instead. This method will now return filesystem URLs of the form

cdvfile://localhost/persistent/path/to/file

which can be used to identify the file uniquely.

For backwards compatibility, the resolveLocalFileSystemURL() method will accept a device-absolute-path, and will return an Entry object corresponding to it, as long as that file exists within either the TEMPORARY or PERSISTENT filesystems.

This has particularly been an issue with the File-Transfer plugin, which previously used device-absolute-paths (and can still accept them). It has been updated to work correctly with FileSystem URLs, so replacing entry.fullPath with entry.toURL() should resolve any issues getting that plugin to work with files on the device.