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: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>
.. (harvested from docstrings in the original file)
.. 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.
To write out and to parse a plist file, use the :func:`writePlist` and
:func:`readPlist` functions.
To work with plist data in bytes objects, use :func:`writePlistToBytes`
and :func:`readPlistFromBytes`.
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) have to 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 bytes object. 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 and
binary) 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 and binary) 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:: readPlistFromBytes(data)
Read a plist data from a bytes object. Return the root object.
.. function:: writePlistToBytes(rootObject)
Return *rootObject* as a plist-formatted bytes object.
The following class is available:
.. class:: Data(data)
Return a "data" wrapper object around the bytes object *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
bytes object stored in it.
Examples
--------
Generating a plist::
pl = dict(
aString = "Doodah",
aList = ["A", "B", 12, 32.1, [1, 2, 3]],
aFloat = 0.1,
anInt = 728,
aDict = dict(
anotherString = "<hello & hi there!>",
aThirdString = "M\xe4ssig, Ma\xdf",
aTrueValue = True,
aFalseValue = False,
),
someData = Data(b"<binary gunk>"),
someMoreData = Data(b"<lots of binary gunk>" * 10),
aDate = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.mktime(time.gmtime())),
)
writePlist(pl, fileName)
Parsing a plist::
pl = readPlist(pathOrFile)
print(pl["aKey"])
|
