simple-plist

simple-plist

A simple API for interacting with binary and plain text plist data.

Installation

# via npm
npm install simple-plist

# via yarn
yarn add simple-plist

Synchronous API

const plist = require("simple-plist");

let data;

// read
data = plist.readFileSync("/path/to/some.plist");

// write xml
plist.writeFileSync("/path/to/plaintext.plist", data);

// write binary
plist.writeBinaryFileSync("/path/to/binary.plist", data);

Asynchronous API

Note: all of the async examples can optionally be converted to promises using node's util.promisify.

const plist = require("simple-plist");

let data;

function callback(err, contents) {
  if (err) throw err;
  data = contents;
}

// read
plist.readFile("/path/to/some.plist", callback);

// write xml
plist.writeFile("/path/to/plaintext.plist", data, callback);

// write binary
plist.writeBinaryFile("/path/to/binary.plist", data, callback);

In Memory

plist.stringify()

const plist = require("simple-plist");

// Convert an object to a plist xml string
plist.stringify({ name: "Joe", answer: 42 });

/*
<?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>name</key>
    <string>Joe</string>
    <key>answer</key>
    <integer>42</integer>
  </dict>
</plist>
*/

plist.parse()

const plist = require("simple-plist");

const xml = `<plist>
	<dict>
		<key>name</key>
		<string>Joe</string>
	</dict>
</plist>`;

plist.parse(xml);
// { "name": "Joe" }

TypeScript Support

All functions have typescript signatures, but there are a few handy generics that are worth pointing out. Those generics belong to parse, readFile, and readFileSync. Here's an example:

import { parse, readFile, readFileSync } from "simple-plist";

type Profile = {
  name: string;
  answer: number;
};

const xml = `<plist>
	<dict>
		<key>name</key>
		<string>Joe</string>
		<key>answer</key>
		<integer>42</integer>
	</dict>
</plist>`;

// typed string parsing
const { answer } = parse<Profile>(xml);
// answer = 42;

// typed file loading
const { name } = readFileSync<Profile>("/path/to/profile.plist");

Similar packages

Other packages similar to simple-plist

plist

The 'plist' package offers similar functionality for parsing and building plist files. It supports both XML and binary plist formats. Compared to simple-plist, it might offer a more comprehensive API and additional options for customization.

bplist-parser

This package is specifically designed for parsing binary plist files. While it does not support writing plist files or handling XML plists, it's optimized for fast and efficient parsing of binary plist data, making it a good choice for applications that only need to read plist files.