Property List/XML

File Format
Name	Property List/XML
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Serialization Property List Property List/XML
Extension(s)	.plist
PRONOM	fmt/979

The XML property list format is one of several formats that have been use for plist files, the standard means for applications under operating systems descended from NeXTSTEP (including current Apple OSs) to store configuration data. The XML format was introduced by Apple to replace the earlier format used in NeXTSTEP, which was also text-based but resembled programming-language syntax rather than markup-language syntax as is used with XML.

This format is a simple XML schema that uses the following elements to represent the core foundation types:

        CFString        <string>
        CFNumber        <real> or <integer>
        CFDate          <date>
        CFBoolean       <true/> or <false/>
        CFData          <data>
        CFArray         <array>
        CFDictionary    <dict>

Software

• plist Editor for Windows: edits both XML and binary versions

References

• Man page at Apple