Breaking one line of objective-c code into two NSDictionary *attributes = nil ;
*attributes = [filemanager attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil] ;

fails with " ... error: incompatible types in assignment"
yet
NSDictionary *attributes = [filemanager attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil] ;

works.
My question is how to break the one line of code that works into two lines of code that works.


*attributes = [filemanager attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil] ;

Delete that '*' from the start of the line. You don't need it. Correct will be:

attributes = [filemanager attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil] ; // no '*' before attributes


NSDictionary *attributes;
attributes = [filemanager attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:nil];