"plistlib" --- Generate and parse Apple ".plist" files
******************************************************

**Source code:** Lib/plistlib.py

======================================================================

This module provides an interface for reading and writing the
"property list" files used by Apple, primarily on macOS and iOS. This
module supports both binary and XML plist files.

The property list (".plist") file format is a simple serialization
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 "dump()" and "load()"
functions.

To work with plist data in bytes objects, use "dumps()" and "loads()".

Values can be strings, integers, floats, booleans, tuples, lists,
dictionaries (but only with string keys), "bytes", "bytearray" or
"datetime.datetime" objects.

3.4 版更變: New API, old API deprecated.  Support for binary format
plists added.

3.8 版更變: Support added for reading and writing "UID" tokens in
binary plists as used by NSKeyedArchiver and NSKeyedUnarchiver.

3.9 版更變: Old API removed.

也參考:

  PList manual page
     Apple's documentation of the file format.

This module defines the following functions:

plistlib.load(fp, *, fmt=None, dict_type=dict)

   Read a plist file. *fp* should be a readable and binary file
   object. Return the unpacked root object (which usually is a
   dictionary).

   The *fmt* is the format of the file and the following values are
   valid:

   * "None": Autodetect the file format

   * "FMT_XML": XML file format

   * "FMT_BINARY": Binary plist format

   The *dict_type* is the type used for dictionaries that are read
   from the plist file.

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

   The parser for the binary format raises "InvalidFileException" when
   the file cannot be parsed.

   3.4 版新加入.

plistlib.loads(data, *, fmt=None, dict_type=dict)

   Load a plist from a bytes object. See "load()" for an explanation
   of the keyword arguments.

   3.4 版新加入.

plistlib.dump(value, fp, *, fmt=FMT_XML, sort_keys=True, skipkeys=False)

   Write *value* to a plist file. *Fp* should be a writable, binary
   file object.

   The *fmt* argument specifies the format of the plist file and can
   be one of the following values:

   * "FMT_XML": XML formatted plist file

   * "FMT_BINARY": Binary formatted plist file

   When *sort_keys* is true (the default) the keys for dictionaries
   will be written to the plist in sorted order, otherwise they will
   be written in the iteration order of the dictionary.

   When *skipkeys* is false (the default) the function raises
   "TypeError" when a key of a dictionary is not a string, otherwise
   such keys are skipped.

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

   An "OverflowError" will be raised for integer values that cannot be
   represented in (binary) plist files.

   3.4 版新加入.

plistlib.dumps(value, *, fmt=FMT_XML, sort_keys=True, skipkeys=False)

   Return *value* as a plist-formatted bytes object. See the
   documentation for "dump()" for an explanation of the keyword
   arguments of this function.

   3.4 版新加入.

The following classes are available:

class plistlib.UID(data)

   Wraps an "int".  This is used when reading or writing
   NSKeyedArchiver encoded data, which contains UID (see PList
   manual).

   It has one attribute, "data", which can be used to retrieve the int
   value of the UID.  "data" must be in the range *0 <= data < 2**64*.

   3.8 版新加入.

The following constants are available:

plistlib.FMT_XML

   The XML format for plist files.

   3.4 版新加入.

plistlib.FMT_BINARY

   The binary format for plist files

   3.4 版新加入.


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 = b"<binary gunk>",
       someMoreData = b"<lots of binary gunk>" * 10,
       aDate = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(time.mktime(time.gmtime())),
   )
   with open(fileName, 'wb') as fp:
       dump(pl, fp)

Parsing a plist:

   with open(fileName, 'rb') as fp:
       pl = load(fp)
   print(pl["aKey"])
