cpython/Doc/library/plistlib.rst
Jon Janzen ce81a925ef bpo-36409: Remove old plistlib API deprecated in 3.4 (GH-15615)
* Remove implementation for old plistlib API deprecated in 3.4
2019-09-05 10:11:35 +02:00

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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)
**Source code:** :source:`Lib/plistlib.py`
.. index::
pair: plist; file
single: property list
--------------
This module provides an interface for reading and writing the "property list"
files used mainly by Mac OS X and 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 :func:`dump` and
:func:`load` functions.
To work with plist data in bytes objects, use :func:`dumps`
and :func:`loads`.
Values can be strings, integers, floats, booleans, tuples, lists, dictionaries
(but only with string keys), :class:`bytes`, :class:`bytearray`
or :class:`datetime.datetime` objects.
.. versionchanged:: 3.4
New API, old API deprecated. Support for binary format plists added.
.. versionchanged:: 3.8
Support added for reading and writing :class:`UID` tokens in binary plists as used
by NSKeyedArchiver and NSKeyedUnarchiver.
.. versionchanged:: 3.9
Old API removed.
.. seealso::
`PList manual page <https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/PropertyLists/>`_
Apple's documentation of the file format.
This module defines the following functions:
.. function:: 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:
* :data:`None`: Autodetect the file format
* :data:`FMT_XML`: XML file format
* :data:`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 :data:`FMT_XML` format 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.
The parser for the binary format raises :exc:`InvalidFileException`
when the file cannot be parsed.
.. versionadded:: 3.4
.. function:: loads(data, \*, fmt=None, dict_type=dict)
Load a plist from a bytes object. See :func:`load` for an explanation of
the keyword arguments.
.. versionadded:: 3.4
.. function:: 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:
* :data:`FMT_XML`: XML formatted plist file
* :data:`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 :exc:`TypeError`
when a key of a dictionary is not a string, otherwise such keys are skipped.
A :exc:`TypeError` will be raised if the object is of an unsupported type or
a container that contains objects of unsupported types.
An :exc:`OverflowError` will be raised for integer values that cannot
be represented in (binary) plist files.
.. versionadded:: 3.4
.. function:: dumps(value, \*, fmt=FMT_XML, sort_keys=True, skipkeys=False)
Return *value* as a plist-formatted bytes object. See
the documentation for :func:`dump` for an explanation of the keyword
arguments of this function.
.. versionadded:: 3.4
The following constants are available:
.. data:: FMT_XML
The XML format for plist files.
.. versionadded:: 3.4
.. data:: FMT_BINARY
The binary format for plist files
.. versionadded:: 3.4
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"])