NAME

       pl, pldes, plser, plmerge, plparse, pl2link  - property list tools

SYNOPSIS

       pldes filename(s)
       plget key[morekeys]
       plser [ -formatfmt ] filename(s)
       plmerge [ destination-file ] [ input-file(s) ]
       plparse filename(s)
       pl2link input-file [ destination-file ]
       pl -input [ input-file ]  -output [ destination-file ]

DESCRIPTION

       Property  lists  in  GNUstep are hierarchical lists of values or attribute-value pairs.  Programmatically
       they are represented by instances of the NSString, NSData, NSArray, or NSDictionary (most  common)  class
       (which may contain other instances of such classes).  These instances can be serialized as binary objects
       to   form   a   persistent  representation.   In  addition,  there  are  two  alternative  human-readable
       representations.  The first, utilized in NeXTstep and OpenStep, utilizes a text format with equals  signs
       expressing  attribute-value  bindings  and  set braces expressing hierarchical organization.  The second,
       often (uninformatively) referred to as "plist" format, is in XML and is used by  Mac  OS  X.   The  tools
       described  here  are  utilities  for manipulating the various persistent property list representations as
       files.

       pldes filename(s)
           Converts a binary serialised property list (class instance) to a text representation.

       plget key
           Reads a text representation of a dictionary in property list format as standard input,  extracts  the
           string  value  held  in  that  dictionary  with  the specified key, and writes the result to standard
           output.  Multiple keys may be used to extract values from nested dictionaries.

       plser [ -format format ] filename(s)
           Converts a text representation of a property list  to  a  binary  serialized  representation,  or  to
           another selected format.

       plmerge [ destination-file ] [ input-file(s) ]
           Merges text property lists into a single property list

       plparse filename(s)
           Checks that each file contains a valid text representation of a property list.

       pl2link input-file [ destination-file ]
           Produces a desktop link file for KDE and Gnome for the given text representation of a property list.

       pl -input [ input-file ]
           Takes the serialized plist represented by input-file and outputs it to standard output.

       pl -output [ destination-file ]
           Takes a plist from standard input and serializes it into destination-file.

SEE ALSO

       defaults(1)

HISTORY

       Written 1999-2000.

       This manual page first appeared in gnustep-base 1.9.2 (March 2004).

AUTHORS

       pldes, plget, plparse, plser were written by Richard Frith-Macdonald <rfm@gnu.org>.

       plmerge was written by Jonathan Gapen  <jagapen@whitewater.chem.wisc.edu>.

       pl2link was written by Fred Kiefer <FredKiefer@gmx.de>.

       pl was written by Gregory Casamento <greg_casamento@yahoo.com>.

GNUstep                                            August 2003                                          PLDES(1)