plist
Kevin Ballard
 
plist is a ruby extension that provides a means to read/write OS X property lists.
 
It requires the presence of CoreFoundation, which means it currently only works under darwin.
 
Usage:
 
One new module is provided, named PropertyList. It has the following 2 methods:
 
PropertyList.load(input, format = false)
  Loads the property list from input, which is either an IO, StringIO, or a string. Format is an optional parameter - if false, the return value is the converted property list object. If true, the return value is a 2-element array, the first element being the returned value and the second being a symbol identifying the property list format.
 
PropertyList.dump(output, obj, format = :xml1)
  Dumps the property list object into output, which is either an IO or StringIO. Format determines the property list format to write out. The supported values are :xml1,, :binary1, and :openstep; however, OpenStep format appears to not be supported by the system for output anymore.
 
The valid formats are :xml1, :binary1, and :openstep. When loading a property list, if the format is something else (not possible under any current OS, but perhaps if a future OS includes another type) then the format will be :unknown.
 
This module also provides a method on Object:
 
Object#to_plist(format = :xml1)
  This is the same as PropertyList.dump except it outputs the property list as a string return value instead of writing it to a stream
 
This module also provides 2 methods on String:
 
String#blob?
  Returns whether the string is a blob.
 
String#blob=
  Sets whether the string is a blob.
 
A blob is a string that's been converted from a <data> property list item. When dumping to a property list, any strings that are blobs are written as <data> items rather than <string> items.
 
INSTALLATION:
  ruby extconf.rb
  make
  ruby test.rb
  sudo make install