Objective-C: How to remove multiple files with admin privileges?

Question

I am trying to remove multiple files using apple script (given below) but it is not working and giving the following error:

Expected expression but found unknown token.

Here is my code:

{
    ///this string will be a contact of all the paths saperated by ' '
    NSString* removingLocationInString = @"";
    ///for loop in order to concat all the string(paths) in one string
    for (NSString* str in locations) {

        removingLocationInString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ \"%@\"", removingLocationInString, str];
    }

    ///creating the command that will be run from apple script
    ///e.g. rm "~/user/vikas/desktop/file.txt" "~/user/vikas/desktop/file2.txt"
    NSString* command = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"rm %@", removingLocationInString];


    [self runScriptAsAdmin:command];

}

-(BOOL)runScriptAsAdmin:(NSString*) fullScript
{
    NSTask *task;
    task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
    [task setLaunchPath: @"/bin/sh"];

    NSArray *arguments = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                          @"-c" ,
                          [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", fullScript],
                          nil];


    NSString * output = nil;
    NSString * processErrorDescription = nil;



    NSDictionary *errorInfo = [NSDictionary new];
    NSString *script =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"do shell script \"%@\" with administrator privileges", fullScript];

    NSAppleScript *appleScript = [[NSAppleScript new] initWithSource:script];
    NSAppleEventDescriptor * eventResult = [appleScript executeAndReturnError:&errorInfo];

    // Check errorInfo
    if (! eventResult)
    {
        // Describe common errors
        NSString *errorDescription = nil;
        if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber])
        {
            NSNumber * errorNumber = (NSNumber *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber];
            if ([errorNumber intValue] == -128)
                errorDescription = @"The administrator password is required to do this.";
        }

        // Set error message from provided message
        if (errorDescription == nil)
        {
            if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage])
                errorDescription =  (NSString *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage];
        }

        return NO;
    }
    else
    {
        // Set output to the AppleScript's output
        NSString *output = [eventResult stringValue];
        return YES;

    }

    return NO;
}

Here is the script that is being generated

do shell script "rm "/Users/vikas/.Trash/.DS_Store" "/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 2.zip" "/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 3.zip" "/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 4 4.55.07 pm.zip" "/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 4.zip"" with administrator privileges

Answer 1

In runScriptAsAdmin function add the following line:

/// if there are " in script then then make it \"
    fullScript = [fullScript stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\"" withString:@"\\\""];

The actual apple script should be as follows:

do shell script "rm \"/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 2.zip\" \"/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 3.zip\" \"/Users/vikas/.Trash/SimpleCocoaBrowser 4.zip\"" with administrator privileges