system.ApplicationSupportDirectory

Overview

Used with system.pathForFile() to create a path for storing and retrieving files that need to persist between application sessions but are not visible to users. For example, this might be used for storing downloadable levels for a game.

On iOS, this information is backed up by syncing.

This property can also be used with other APIs requesting "baseDirectory" as a parameter (e.g., display.newImage(), display.save(), etc.).

In the Corona Simulator, this will be in a sandboxed folder on a per-application basis. You can view the directories/files via File → Show Project Sandbox.

Syntax

system.ApplicationSupportDirectory

Examples

local path = system.pathForFile( "data.txt", system.ApplicationSupportDirectory )
 
-- io.open opens a file at path. returns nil if no file found
local fh, reason = io.open( path, "r" )
 
if fh then
    -- read all contents of file into a string
    local contents = fh:read( "*a" )
    print( "Contents of " .. path .. "\n" .. contents )
else
    print( "Reason open failed: " .. reason )  -- display failure message in terminal

    -- create file because it doesn't exist yet
    fh = io.open( path, "w" )

    if fh then
        print( "Created file" )
    else
        print( "Create file failed!" )
    end

    local numbers = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}
    fh:write( "Feed me data!\n", numbers[1], numbers[2], "\n" )

    for _,v in ipairs( numbers ) do 
        fh:write( v, " " )
    end

    fh:write( "\nNo more data\n" )
end
 
io.close( fh )