writeToFile:atomically: what does atomically mean? writeToFile:atomically: what does atomically mean? ios ios

writeToFile:atomically: what does atomically mean?


An 'atomic write' is one where you are guaranteed to have either a correct, complete write to the file or an error. There's no chance that, say, half of the write will work and then something bad happens (lost power, drive crash, etc) and the rest of the write fails. It's all or nothing. This is generally what you want.


atomically

If YES, the data is written to a backup file, and then—assuming no errors occur—the backup file is renamed to the name specified by path; otherwise, the data is written directly to path.