nsfilemanager createFileAtPath results in NSFileCreationDate being null

Question

I am creating an image file from a json object and the file creation is successful and the image is indeed created and can be displayed. I want a process that will check if the file is still in cache or a tmp directory before downloading the image. If the image is indeed there then I want to check the creation date and modification date attributes of the file to see if I need to download a new version of the image to keep it up to date. This is where the problem comes in.

The creation and modification date attributes are null. I've even attempted to manually set the attributes and it didn't change anything.

Here's the code I use to create the file:

NSString *fileName = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"tmp/%@",theFileName]];
BOOL filecreationSuccess =[fileManager createFileAtPath:fileName contents:myData attributes:nil];
if(filecreationSuccess == NO){
    NSLog(@"Failed to create the file");
}

I have even tried adding the Code and the attributes on the file are still null:

NSDate *now = [NSDate date];
NSDictionary *createDateAttr = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: now, NSFileCreationDate,nil];
NSDictionary *modDateAttr = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: now, NSFileModificationDate, nil];
[fileManager setAttributes:modDateAttr ofItemAtPath:fileName error:&err];
[fileManager setAttributes:createDateAttr ofItemAtPath:fileName error:&err];

I am unsure of what to do next. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Answer 1

I have found my problem. It wasn't that the modification and creation dates weren't being set, but that I was not getting the correct set of properties for the file. It ended up being that the code I was using was getting the properties for the path that the file was in, not the file itself.