Edit File: plistlib.html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>13.6. plistlib — Generate and parse Mac OS X .plist files — Python 2.7.5 documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/default.css" type="text/css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript"> var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = { URL_ROOT: '../', VERSION: '2.7.5', COLLAPSE_INDEX: false, FILE_SUFFIX: '.html', HAS_SOURCE: true }; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/underscore.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/doctools.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/sidebar.js"></script> <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="Search within Python 2.7.5 documentation" href="../_static/opensearch.xml"/> <link rel="author" title="About these documents" href="../about.html" /> <link rel="copyright" title="Copyright" href="../copyright.html" /> <link rel="top" title="Python 2.7.5 documentation" href="../index.html" /> <link rel="up" title="13. 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File Formats</a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body"> <div class="section" id="module-plistlib"> <span id="plistlib-generate-and-parse-mac-os-x-plist-files"></span><h1>13.6. <a class="reference internal" href="#module-plistlib" title="plistlib: Generate and parse Mac OS X plist files."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">plistlib</span></tt></a> — Generate and parse Mac OS X <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt> files<a class="headerlink" href="#module-plistlib" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1> <p class="versionchanged"> <span class="versionmodified">Changed in version 2.6: </span>This module was previously only available in the Mac-specific library, it is now available for all platforms.</p> <p id="index-0"><strong>Source code:</strong> <a class="reference external" href="http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/2.7/Lib/plistlib.py">Lib/plistlib.py</a></p> <hr class="docutils" /> <p>This module provides an interface for reading and writing the “property list” XML files used mainly by Mac OS X.</p> <p>The property list (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt>) 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.</p> <p>Values can be strings, integers, floats, booleans, tuples, lists, dictionaries (but only with string keys), <a class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data" title="plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> or <a class="reference internal" href="datetime.html#datetime.datetime" title="datetime.datetime"><tt class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">datetime.datetime</span></tt></a> objects. String values (including dictionary keys) may be unicode strings – they will be written out as UTF-8.</p> <p>The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre"><data></span></tt> plist type is supported through the <a class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data" title="plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> class. This is a thin wrapper around a Python string. Use <a class="reference internal" href="#plistlib.Data" title="plistlib.Data"><tt class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Data</span></tt></a> if your strings contain control characters.</p> <div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso"> <p class="first admonition-title">See also</p> <dl class="last docutils"> <dt><a class="reference external" href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/plist.5.html">PList manual page</a></dt> <dd>Apple’s documentation of the file format.</dd> </dl> </div> <p>This module defines the following functions:</p> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.readPlist"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlist</tt><big>(</big><em>pathOrFile</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Read a plist file. <em>pathOrFile</em> may either be a file name or a (readable) file object. Return the unpacked root object (which usually is a dictionary).</p> <p>The XML data is parsed using the Expat parser from <a class="reference internal" href="pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat" title="xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.parsers.expat</span></tt></a> – see its documentation for possible exceptions on ill-formed XML. Unknown elements will simply be ignored by the plist parser.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.writePlist"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlist</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em>, <em>pathOrFile</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Write <em>rootObject</em> to a plist file. <em>pathOrFile</em> may either be a file name or a (writable) file object.</p> <p>A <a class="reference internal" href="exceptions.html#exceptions.TypeError" title="exceptions.TypeError"><tt class="xref py py-exc docutils literal"><span class="pre">TypeError</span></tt></a> will be raised if the object is of an unsupported type or a container that contains objects of unsupported types.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.readPlistFromString"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlistFromString</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlistFromString" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Read a plist from a string. Return the root object.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.writePlistToString"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlistToString</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlistToString" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Return <em>rootObject</em> as a plist-formatted string.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.readPlistFromResource"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">readPlistFromResource</tt><big>(</big><em>path</em>, <em>restype='plst'</em>, <em>resid=0</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.readPlistFromResource" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Read a plist from the resource with type <em>restype</em> from the resource fork of <em>path</em>. Availability: Mac OS X.</p> <div class="admonition note"> <p class="first admonition-title">Note</p> <p class="last">In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.</p> </div> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="plistlib.writePlistToResource"> <tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">writePlistToResource</tt><big>(</big><em>rootObject</em>, <em>path</em>, <em>restype='plst'</em>, <em>resid=0</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.writePlistToResource" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Write <em>rootObject</em> as a resource with type <em>restype</em> to the resource fork of <em>path</em>. Availability: Mac OS X.</p> <div class="admonition note"> <p class="first admonition-title">Note</p> <p class="last">In Python 3.x, this function has been removed.</p> </div> </dd></dl> <p>The following class is available:</p> <dl class="class"> <dt id="plistlib.Data"> <em class="property">class </em><tt class="descclassname">plistlib.</tt><tt class="descname">Data</tt><big>(</big><em>data</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#plistlib.Data" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Return a “data” wrapper object around the string <em>data</em>. This is used in functions converting from/to plists to represent the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre"><data></span></tt> type available in plists.</p> <p>It has one attribute, <tt class="xref py py-attr docutils literal"><span class="pre">data</span></tt>, that can be used to retrieve the Python string stored in it.</p> </dd></dl> <div class="section" id="examples"> <h2>13.6.1. Examples<a class="headerlink" href="#examples" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>Generating a plist:</p> <div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">pl</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">dict</span><span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">aString</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"Doodah"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">aList</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">"A"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"B"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">32.1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">]],</span> <span class="n">aFloat</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">anInt</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">728</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">aDict</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">dict</span><span class="p">(</span> <span class="n">anotherString</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"<hello & hi there!>"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">aUnicodeValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">u'M</span><span class="se">\xe4</span><span class="s">ssig, Ma</span><span class="se">\xdf</span><span class="s">'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">aTrueValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">True</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">aFalseValue</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">False</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">someData</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"<binary gunk>"</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">someMoreData</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"<lots of binary gunk>"</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">aDate</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">datetime</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">fromtimestamp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">time</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">mktime</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">time</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">gmtime</span><span class="p">())),</span> <span class="p">)</span> <span class="c"># unicode keys are possible, but a little awkward to use:</span> <span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">u'</span><span class="se">\xc5</span><span class="s">benraa'</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">"That was a unicode key."</span> <span class="n">writePlist</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">fileName</span><span class="p">)</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>Parsing a plist:</p> <div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">pl</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">readPlist</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">pathOrFile</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">pl</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s">"aKey"</span><span class="p">]</span> </pre></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#">13.6. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">plistlib</span></tt> — Generate and parse Mac OS X <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.plist</span></tt> files</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#examples">13.6.1. Examples</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h4>Previous topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="xdrlib.html" title="previous chapter">13.5. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xdrlib</span></tt> — Encode and decode XDR data</a></p> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="crypto.html" title="next chapter">14. 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