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>.