NSBundle or the C++ way?

 While developing for GFile, I found that you could use both C++ and NSBundle for accessing data from the app bundle for iOS. I wanted to know which way as better for the architecture we are using. As such I searched for which way was more widely used, as well as best practices for iOS, and finally, what would fit into how Gateware works.

The first thing I noted from this research was that Apple recommends that you use NSBundle for accessing files in the app bundle. Another thing going for using NSBundle is the ability to not need the file path to the file that you want, you can also find your file using it's filename, assuming that there are not multiple files with the same name. These benefits were appealing when deciding which FileIO system to use. There were also drawbacks to this approach. Namely a memory management one. NSBundle can dynamically allocate memory for you if it finds that it needs more memory for searching the bundle for your assets. Another drawbacks to consider, although it doesn't have to do with NSBundle itself, is that Gateware already has an interface that accepts filepathing as the main form of traversal through a file system, not searching.

There are other options to consider though. C and C++ style FileIO is also possible on iOS, albeit not recommended by Apple themselves. Because of this I could make minimal tweaks to the existing codebase and reuse most of the Mac implementation for iOS. While this is the most simple solution it comes with its own issues. Firstly Apple does not recommend using app bundles in this way. Next the C and C++ ways may not be available in future releases of iOS, as some employees have hinted at in developer forums. 

In the end I decided to go with the C++ way of FileIO for iOS. That way I could spend more time in other libraries, and so I wouldn't have to change something that mostly already worked. I had to change a setting in XCode for how it creates the bundle to avoid a crash using the C++ way, but other than that the code worked. This solution ended up being good for more than time. It also helped gain some precious mobile memory and kept Gateware away from using search-based FileIO and kept me from writing code based on whether or not a file was in the bundle.