I am slowly converting an Objective C with C program to Swift with C. All of my menus and dialog boxes are now in Swift, but files are still opened and closed in Objective C and C. The following code is Objective C and tries to open two files in the same directory with two related names after getting the base of the name from a Save Panel. The code you see was modified by ChatGPT 5.0, and similar code was modified by Claude. Both LLMs wrote code that failed because neither knows how to navigate Apple’s sandbox. Does anybody understand Apple’s sandbox? I eventually want to open more related files and do not want the user to have to click through multiple file dialog boxes. What is the best solution? Are the LLMs just not up to the task and there is a simple solution to the Objective C code? Is this easier in Swift? Other ideas?
Thanks in advance for any help.
(BOOL)setupOutputFilesWithBaseName:(NSString*)baseName {
NSString *outFileNameStr = baseName;
if (outFileNameStr == nil || [outFileNameStr length] == 0) {
outFileNameStr = @"output";
}
// Show ONE save panel for the base filename
NSSavePanel *savePanel = [NSSavePanel savePanel];
[savePanel setMessage:@"Choose base name and location for output files\n(Two files will be created: one ending with 'Pkout', one with 'Freqout')"];
[savePanel setNameFieldStringValue:outFileNameStr];
if (directoryURL != nil) {
[savePanel setDirectoryURL:directoryURL];
}
if ([savePanel runModal] != NSModalResponseOK) {
NSLog(@"User cancelled file selection");
return NO;
}
// Get the selected file URL - this gives us security access to the directory
NSURL *baseFileURL = [savePanel URL];
// Get the directory - THIS is what we need for security scope
NSURL *dirURL = [baseFileURL URLByDeletingLastPathComponent];
// Start accessing the DIRECTORY, not just the file
BOOL didStartAccessing = [dirURL startAccessingSecurityScopedResource];
if (!didStartAccessing) {
NSLog(@"Warning: Could not start security-scoped access to directory");
}
NSString *baseFileName = [[baseFileURL lastPathComponent] stringByDeletingPathExtension];
NSString *extension = [baseFileURL pathExtension];
// Create the two file names with suffixes
NSString *pkoutName = [baseFileName stringByAppendingString:@"Pkout"];
NSString *freqoutName = [baseFileName stringByAppendingString:@"Freqout"];
NSURL *pkoutURL = [dirURL URLByAppendingPathComponent:pkoutName];
NSURL *freqoutURL = [dirURL URLByAppendingPathComponent:freqoutName];
NSLog(@"Attempting to open: %@", [pkoutURL path]);
NSLog(@"Attempting to open: %@", [freqoutURL path]);
// Open the first file (Pkout)
globalFpout = fopen([[pkoutURL path] UTF8String], "w+");
if (globalFpout == NULL) {
int errnum = errno;
NSLog(@"Error: Could not open Pkout file at %@", [pkoutURL path]);
NSLog(@"Error code: %d - %s", errnum, strerror(errnum));
if (didStartAccessing) {
[dirURL stopAccessingSecurityScopedResource];
}
return NO;
}
NSLog(@":white_check_mark: Pkout file opened: %@", [pkoutURL path]);
// Open the second file (Freqout)
globalFpfrqout = fopen([[freqoutURL path] UTF8String], "w+");
if (globalFpfrqout == NULL) {
int errnum = errno;
NSLog(@"Error: Could not open Freqout file at %@", [freqoutURL path]);
NSLog(@"Error code: %d - %s", errnum, strerror(errnum));
fclose(globalFpout);
globalFpout = NULL;
if (didStartAccessing) {
[dirURL stopAccessingSecurityScopedResource];
}
return NO;
}
NSLog(@":white_check_mark: Freqout file opened: %@", [freqoutURL path]);
// Store the directory URL so we can stop accessing later
secureDirectoryURL = dirURL;
return YES;
}