PLDES(1)

👑 PLDES — the property list tools, bestie edition 💅

okay so this is the manual page for the GNUstep property list tool squad — <pink>pl, pldes</pink>, <pink>plser, plmerge</pink>, <pink>plparseandpl2link</pink> — living in the GNUstep System Manual. pull up a chair, we're doing plists. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

pl, pldes, plser, plmerge, plparse, pl2link — property list tools. that's the whole squad. 🫶

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🎀 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 ]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so. property lists in GNUstep are hierarchical lists of values, or attribute-value pairs, depending on the vibe. programmatically they're represented by instances of the NSString, NSData, NSArray, or NSDictionary class — and NSDictionary is the most common one, no cap. and plot twist: those instances can contain other instances of those same classes. it's giving nested. it's giving recursive. 💅

these instances can be serialized as binary objects to form a persistent representation. ✨

and on top of that there are two alternative human-readable representations:

1. the first one, used in NeXTstep and OpenStep, is a text format that uses equals signs to express attribute-value bindings and set braces to express hierarchical organization.
2. the second one, 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. iconic behaviour honestly.

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🌈 pldes filename(s)

converts a binary serialised property list (that's a class instance btw) to a text representation. binary ➡️ text. slay.

🌈 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 — yes bestie, you can go digging. 🦋

🌈 plser [ -format format ] filename(s)

converts a text representation of a property list to a binary serialized representation, or to another selected format. you pick the format, it does the thing. 🎀

🌈 plmerge [ destination-file ] [ input-file(s) ]

merges text property lists into a single property list. one plist to rule them all fr fr.

🌈 plparse filename(s)

checks that each file contains a valid text representation of a property list. it's the vibe check of the group. ✨

🌈 pl2link input-file [ destination-file ]

produces a desktop link file for KDE and Gnome for the given text representation of a property list. cross-desktop bestie behaviour. 💜

🌈 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.

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• defaults(1)

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📜 HISTORY 📜

written 1999-2000. yes, it's old money. 👑

this manual page first appeared in gnustep-base 1.9.2 (March 2004). so it's been serving looks since before some of us could read. 😭

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🫶 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>.

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and that's the whole page, bestie — brought to you by the GNUstep System Manual, dated August 2003, and still eating. 💅✨