Ply

Property list pretty-printer powered by howett.net/plist.

verb. work with (a tool, especially one requiring steady, rhythmic movements).

Installation

go get howett.net/plist/cmd/ply

Usage

  ply [OPTIONS]

Application Options:
  -c, --convert=<format>    convert the property list to a new format (c=list for list) (pretty)
  -k, --key=<keypath>       A keypath! (/)
  -o, --out=<filename>      output filename
  -I, --indent              indent indentable output formats (xml, openstep, gnustep, json)

Help Options:
  -h, --help                Show this help message

Features

Keypath evaluation

$ ply file.plist
{
  x: {
       y: {
            z: 1024
          }
     }
}
$ ply -k x/y/z file.plist
1024

Keypaths are composed of a number of path expressions:

• /name - dictionary key access
• [i] - index array, string, or data
• [i:j] - silce array, string, or data in the range [i, j)
• ! - parse the data value as a property list and use it as the base of evaluation for further path components
• $(subexpression) - evaluate subexpression and paste its value

Examples

Given the following property list:

{
	a = {
		b = {
			c = (1, 2, 3);
			d = hello;
		};
		data = <414243>;
	};
	sub = <7b0a0974 6869733d 22612064 69637469 6f6e6172 7920696e 73696465 20616e6f 74686572 20706c69 73742122 3b7d>;
	hello = subexpression;
}

pretty print

$ ply file.plist
{
  a: {
       b: {
            c: (
                 [0]: 1
                 [1]: 2
                 [2]: 3
               )
            d: hello
          }
       data: 00000000  41 42 43                                          |ABC.............|
     }
  hello: subexpression
  sub: 00000000  7b 0a 09 74 68 69 73 3d  22 61 20 64 69 63 74 69  |{..this="a dicti|
       00000010  6f 6e 61 72 79 20 69 6e  73 69 64 65 20 61 6e 6f  |onary inside ano|
       00000020  74 68 65 72 20 70 6c 69  73 74 21 22 3b 7d        |ther plist!";}..|
}

consecutive dictionary keys

$ ply file.plist -k 'a/b/d'
hello

array indexing

$ ply file.plist -k 'a/b/c[1]'
2

data hexdump

$ ply file.plist -k 'a/data'
00000000  41 42 43                                          |ABC.............|

data and array slicing

$ ply file.plist -k 'a/data[2:3]'
00000000  43                                                |C...............|

$ ply -k 'sub[0:10]' file.plist
00000000  7b 0a 09 74 68 69 73 3d  22 61                    |{..this="a......|

subplist parsing

$ ply -k 'sub!' file.plist
{
  this: a dictionary inside another plist!
}

subplist keypath evaluation

$ ply -k 'sub!/this' file.plist
a dictionary inside another plist!

subexpression evaluation

$ ply -k '/$(/a/b/d)' file.plist
subexpression

Property list conversion

-c <format>, or -c list to list them all.

• Binary property list [bplist]
• XML [xml]
• GNUstep [gnustep, gs]
• OpenStep [openstep, os]
• JSON (for a subset of data types) [json]
• YAML [yaml]

Notes

By default, ply will emit the most compact representation it can for a given format. The -I flag influences the inclusion of whitespace.

Ply will overwrite the input file unless an output filename is specified with -o <file>.

Property list subsetting

(and subset conversion)

$ ply -k '/a/b' -o file-a-b.plist -c openstep -I file.plist
$ cat file-a-b.plist
{
	c = (
		1,
		2,
		3,
	);
	d = hello;
}

Subplist extraction

$ ply -k '/sub!' -o file-sub.plist -c openstep -I file.plist
$ cat file-sub.plist
{
	this = "a dictionary inside another plist!";
}