plist

Read and Manipulate Binary or XML Property Lists

Description

A property list is a representation of a hierarchy of objects that can be stored in the file system, memory, or databases and reconstituted later. Property lists give applications a lightweight and portable way to store small amounts of data. They are hierarchies of data made from specific types of objects—they are, in effect, an object graph. Tools are provided to read and manipulate binary or XML property lists.

NOTE Requires libplist.

What’s Inside The Tin

The following functions are implemented:

• plist_to_list: Convert a property list (binary or XML) to an R list
• plist_to_xml: Convert a property list to raw (unparsed) XML
• read_plist: Read a binary or XML property list from a file/connection

Installation

remotes::install_git("https://git.rud.is/hrbrmstr/plist.git")
# or
remotes::install_git("https://git.sr.ht/~hrbrmstr/plist")
# or
remotes::install_gitlab("hrbrmstr/plist")
# or
remotes::install_bitbucket("hrbrmstr/plist")
# or
remotes::install_github("hrbrmstr/plist")

NOTE: To use the ‘remotes’ install options you will need to have the {remotes} package installed.

Usage

library(plist)

# current version
packageVersion("plist")
## [1] '0.1.0'

Plaintext XML property list in a string:

xml <- '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.example.app</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh</string>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>'

plist_to_list(xml)
## $Label
## [1] "com.example.app"
## 
## $Program
## [1] "/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh"
## 
## $RunAtLoad
## [1] TRUE
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "list"

Same content but binary property list:

as.raw(c(0x3c, 0x3f, 0x78, 0x6d, 0x6c, 0x20, 0x76, 0x65, 0x72, 
0x73, 0x69, 0x6f, 0x6e, 0x3d, 0x22, 0x31, 0x2e, 0x30, 0x22, 0x20, 
0x65, 0x6e, 0x63, 0x6f, 0x64, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x67, 0x3d, 0x22, 0x55, 
0x54, 0x46, 0x2d, 0x38, 0x22, 0x3f, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x3c, 0x21, 0x44, 
0x4f, 0x43, 0x54, 0x59, 0x50, 0x45, 0x20, 0x70, 0x6c, 0x69, 0x73, 
0x74, 0x20, 0x50, 0x55, 0x42, 0x4c, 0x49, 0x43, 0x20, 0x22, 0x2d, 
0x2f, 0x2f, 0x41, 0x70, 0x70, 0x6c, 0x65, 0x2f, 0x2f, 0x44, 0x54, 
0x44, 0x20, 0x50, 0x4c, 0x49, 0x53, 0x54, 0x20, 0x31, 0x2e, 0x30, 
0x2f, 0x2f, 0x45, 0x4e, 0x22, 0x20, 0x22, 0x68, 0x74, 0x74, 0x70, 
0x3a, 0x2f, 0x2f, 0x77, 0x77, 0x77, 0x2e, 0x61, 0x70, 0x70, 0x6c, 
0x65, 0x2e, 0x63, 0x6f, 0x6d, 0x2f, 0x44, 0x54, 0x44, 0x73, 0x2f, 
0x50, 0x72, 0x6f, 0x70, 0x65, 0x72, 0x74, 0x79, 0x4c, 0x69, 0x73, 
0x74, 0x2d, 0x31, 0x2e, 0x30, 0x2e, 0x64, 0x74, 0x64, 0x22, 0x3e, 
0x0a, 0x3c, 0x70, 0x6c, 0x69, 0x73, 0x74, 0x20, 0x76, 0x65, 0x72, 
0x73, 0x69, 0x6f, 0x6e, 0x3d, 0x22, 0x31, 0x2e, 0x30, 0x22, 0x3e, 
0x0a, 0x09, 0x3c, 0x64, 0x69, 0x63, 0x74, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x09, 0x09, 
0x3c, 0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 0x4c, 0x61, 0x62, 0x65, 0x6c, 0x3c, 
0x2f, 0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x09, 0x09, 0x3c, 0x73, 0x74, 
0x72, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x67, 0x3e, 0x63, 0x6f, 0x6d, 0x2e, 0x65, 0x78, 
0x61, 0x6d, 0x70, 0x6c, 0x65, 0x2e, 0x61, 0x70, 0x70, 0x3c, 0x2f, 
0x73, 0x74, 0x72, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x67, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x09, 0x09, 0x3c, 
0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 0x50, 0x72, 0x6f, 0x67, 0x72, 0x61, 0x6d, 
0x3c, 0x2f, 0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x09, 0x09, 0x3c, 0x73, 
0x74, 0x72, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x67, 0x3e, 0x2f, 0x55, 0x73, 0x65, 0x72, 
0x73, 0x2f, 0x4d, 0x65, 0x2f, 0x53, 0x63, 0x72, 0x69, 0x70, 0x74, 
0x73, 0x2f, 0x63, 0x6c, 0x65, 0x61, 0x6e, 0x75, 0x70, 0x2e, 0x73, 
0x68, 0x3c, 0x2f, 0x73, 0x74, 0x72, 0x69, 0x6e, 0x67, 0x3e, 0x0a, 
0x09, 0x09, 0x3c, 0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 0x52, 0x75, 0x6e, 0x41, 
0x74, 0x4c, 0x6f, 0x61, 0x64, 0x3c, 0x2f, 0x6b, 0x65, 0x79, 0x3e, 
0x0a, 0x09, 0x09, 0x3c, 0x74, 0x72, 0x75, 0x65, 0x2f, 0x3e, 0x0a, 
0x09, 0x3c, 0x2f, 0x64, 0x69, 0x63, 0x74, 0x3e, 0x0a, 0x3c, 0x2f, 
0x70, 0x6c, 0x69, 0x73, 0x74, 0x3e, 0x0a)) -> raw_plist

plist_to_list(raw_plist)
## $Label
## [1] "com.example.app"
## 
## $Program
## [1] "/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh"
## 
## $RunAtLoad
## [1] TRUE
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "list"

Raw, unparsed XML vs a list:

plist_to_xml(xml)
## [1] "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC \"-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN\" \"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd\">\n<plist version=\"1.0\">\n<dict>\n\t<key>Label</key>\n\t<string>com.example.app</string>\n\t<key>Program</key>\n\t<string>/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh</string>\n\t<key>RunAtLoad</key>\n\t<true/>\n</dict>\n</plist>\n"
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "character"

plist_to_xml(raw_plist)
## [1] "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC \"-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN\" \"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd\">\n<plist version=\"1.0\">\n<dict>\n\t<key>Label</key>\n\t<string>com.example.app</string>\n\t<key>Program</key>\n\t<string>/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh</string>\n\t<key>RunAtLoad</key>\n\t<true/>\n</dict>\n</plist>\n"
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "character"

From files:

# plaintext XML
read_plist(system.file("sample/plist.txt", package = "plist"))
## $Label
## [1] "com.example.app"
## 
## $Program
## [1] "/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh"
## 
## $RunAtLoad
## [1] TRUE
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "list"

# binary
read_plist(system.file("sample/plist.bin", package = "plist"))
## $Label
## [1] "com.example.app"
## 
## $Program
## [1] "/Users/Me/Scripts/cleanup.sh"
## 
## $RunAtLoad
## [1] TRUE
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "property_list" "list"

plist Metrics

Lang	# Files	(%)	LoC	(%)	Blank lines	(%)	# Lines	(%)
Rmd	1	0.14	58	0.46	28	0.44	43	0.38
C++	2	0.29	37	0.29	16	0.25	4	0.04
R	4	0.57	31	0.25	20	0.31	65	0.58

Code of Conduct

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.