Property List
Dan Tobias (Talk | contribs) |
(→References: Updating Forensics Wiki links) |
||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
| Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
|extensions={{ext|plist}} | |extensions={{ext|plist}} | ||
}} | }} | ||
| + | |||
| + | The '''Property List''' (plist) file is a standard feature of the operating systems descended from NeXTSTEP, which includes the current Apple operating systems. It is the standard way for programs developed under such systems to save and load data between the internal representation within the objects defined in an [[Objective-C]] program and disk files, in order to store program settings and other data. The Cocoa framework's standard objects have built-in methods to deal with these files. NeXTSTEP had a text-based format for this, in a style resembling a programming language; Apple replaced it with an [[XML]]-based format for Mac OS X, and later on they also introduced a binary format as well, which is now the default save format for preference files. | ||
Several variations: | Several variations: | ||
| Line 10: | Line 12: | ||
* [[Property List/XML|XML Property Lists]] | * [[Property List/XML|XML Property Lists]] | ||
* [[Property List/Binary|Binary Property Lists]] | * [[Property List/Binary|Binary Property Lists]] | ||
| + | |||
| + | Current MacOs development frameworks can also use property lists in [[JSON]], but these can't necessarily be precisely transferred to and from the other formats, since the data types aren't exactly the same. | ||
| + | |||
| + | == References == | ||
| + | * [[Wikipedia:Property list|Wikipedia article]] | ||
| + | * [{{ForensicsWikiURL|property_list_%28plist%29}} Forensics Wiki article] | ||
| + | * [https://github.com/JonathanBeck/libplist libplist] | ||
| + | |||
| + | [[Category:Macintosh]] | ||
| + | [[Category:IOS]] | ||
Latest revision as of 14:55, 3 September 2023
The Property List (plist) file is a standard feature of the operating systems descended from NeXTSTEP, which includes the current Apple operating systems. It is the standard way for programs developed under such systems to save and load data between the internal representation within the objects defined in an Objective-C program and disk files, in order to store program settings and other data. The Cocoa framework's standard objects have built-in methods to deal with these files. NeXTSTEP had a text-based format for this, in a style resembling a programming language; Apple replaced it with an XML-based format for Mac OS X, and later on they also introduced a binary format as well, which is now the default save format for preference files.
Several variations:
Current MacOs development frameworks can also use property lists in JSON, but these can't necessarily be precisely transferred to and from the other formats, since the data types aren't exactly the same.
