:mod:`plistlib` --- Generate and parse Mac OS X .plist files

.. module:: plistlib
   :synopsis: Generate and parse Mac OS X plist files.

.. moduleauthor:: Jack Jansen

.. sectionauthor:: Georg Brandl <georg@python.org>

.. versionchanged:: 2.6
   This module was previously only available in the Mac-specific library, it is
   now available for all platforms.

.. index::
   pair: plist; file
   single: property list

Source code: :source:`Lib/plistlib.py`

This module provides an interface for reading and writing the "property list" XML files used mainly by Mac OS X.

The property list (.plist) file format is a simple XML pickle supporting basic object types, like dictionaries, lists, numbers and strings. Usually the top level object is a dictionary.

Values can be strings, integers, floats, booleans, tuples, lists, dictionaries (but only with string keys), :class:`Data` or :class:`datetime.datetime` objects. String values (including dictionary keys) may be unicode strings -- they will be written out as UTF-8.

The <data> plist type is supported through the :class:`Data` class. This is a thin wrapper around a Python string. Use :class:`Data` if your strings contain control characters.

.. seealso::

   `PList manual page <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/plist.5.html>`_
      Apple's documentation of the file format.

This module defines the following functions:

.. function:: readPlist(pathOrFile)

   Read a plist file. *pathOrFile* may either be a file name or a (readable)
   file object.  Return the unpacked root object (which usually is a
   dictionary).

   The XML data is parsed using the Expat parser from :mod:`xml.parsers.expat`
   -- see its documentation for possible exceptions on ill-formed XML.
   Unknown elements will simply be ignored by the plist parser.

.. function:: writePlist(rootObject, pathOrFile)

    Write *rootObject* to a plist file. *pathOrFile* may either be a file name
    or a (writable) file object.

    A :exc:`TypeError` will be raised if the object is of an unsupported type or
    a container that contains objects of unsupported types.

.. function:: readPlistFromString(data)

   Read a plist from a string.  Return the root object.

.. function:: writePlistToString(rootObject)

   Return *rootObject* as a plist-formatted string.

.. function:: readPlistFromResource(path, restype='plst', resid=0)

    Read a plist from the resource with type *restype* from the resource fork of
    *path*.  Availability: Mac OS X.

    .. note::

       In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.

.. function:: writePlistToResource(rootObject, path, restype='plst', resid=0)

    Write *rootObject* as a resource with type *restype* to the resource fork of
    *path*.  Availability: Mac OS X.

    .. note::

       In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.

The following class is available:

Return a "data" wrapper object around the string data. This is used in functions converting from/to plists to represent the <data> type available in plists.

It has one attribute, :attr:`data`, that can be used to retrieve the Python string stored in it.

pl = dict(
    aString="Doodah",
    aList=["A", "B", 12, 32.1, [1, 2, 3]],
    aFloat = 0.1,
    anInt = 728,
    aDict=dict(
        anotherString="<hello & hi there!>",
        aUnicodeValue=u'M\xe4ssig, Ma\xdf',
        aTrueValue=True,
        aFalseValue=False,
    ),
    someData = Data("<binary gunk>"),
    someMoreData = Data("<lots of binary gunk>" * 10),
    aDate = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.mktime(time.gmtime())),
)
# unicode keys are possible, but a little awkward to use:
pl[u'\xc5benraa'] = "That was a unicode key."
writePlist(pl, fileName)

pl = readPlist(pathOrFile)
print pl["aKey"]