Air file.nativePath Vs. file.url

Is it me or is file.url a lot easier to use than file.nativePath in Adobe AIR. Maybe I’m missing something because every tutorial or code snippet I can find uses file.nativePath.

I’m busy building an AIR application that can be used on Windows and Mac OS. I have to take care of the file structure of both systems. After I test my application on a Mac I couldn’t load anything from it. The reason of this problem is that Mac needs “file://” in front of the file URL to load the file correct.

When I had this problem I searched the internet for a solution. I found very complex solutions at EverythingFlex and Snipplr. But then I start to examine the File object and found just the right file url (on the Mac it adds “file://” in front of the url) just accessible with File.url. Then I tested it on Windows and it worked perfect.

I see no reason why I shouldn’t use this simple version of all the long code solutions that are available on the web. But like I said maybe I’m missing something?

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7 Comments

  1. Quentin - May 8, 2008

    I was wondering the exact same thing…
    If someone has a clue!

  2. Greg - May 8, 2008

    The nativePath is formatted to a path the average user understands. Some users might see file:///C:/Program Files/… on windows and say: huh?

    nativePath would read so they see C:Program Files… which would make sense to them.

    I’ve always used nativePath when displaying a filepath to a user (like depicting a file they’ve chosen), and a url when you are loading that content into an Image component or something.

  3. Arno Manders - May 8, 2008

    that sounds like a reasonable purpose to use nativePath. But why are the people of those scripts using file.nativePath instead of file.url?

  4. ovaseethell - December 15, 2009

    Howdy – This is a great place

    Just registered and wanted to say hello.

  5. deRijk - March 10, 2010

    This saved my day Arno.

  6. Chris Dennett - October 6, 2010

    Thank you for this. Swapping .nativePath for .url has now made me all Mac compatible which gives me a nice warm feeling inside… or that may be the wine. But either way, thank you for your post, you’re a wonderful person.

  7. starlover - July 15, 2011

    And?? Did you miss something?

    I too ran into the problem that my images did not load on a mac when i use nativepath as saved image urls.

    Can i safely use url instead?

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