mat-sz / plist

📝 An universal TypeScript library for handing Apple's Property Lists. Supports binary, text and XML plists; works well in both browser and node.

@plist/plist

An universal TypeScript library for handing Apple's Property Lists. Supports binary, text and XML plists; works well in both browser and node.

About

@plist/* adapts code, logic and test cases from:

• node-bplist-parser
• node-bplist-creator
• plist.js
• nextstep-plist
• simple-plist

I've decided to proceed with creating new libraries, instead of using those packages as dependencies, since it was necessary to modify the upstream code to remove reliance on node-only packages (mainly fs) and this would be too much of a change for anyone relying on the aforementioned libraries.

This library differs from other plist-related JavaScript libraries:

• works on binary, text (OpenStep/NEXTStep), and XML plists
• works in both node.js and browser environments (ArrayBuffer instead of Buffer, no usage of fs or other node-only libraries)

Installation

@plist/plist is available on npm, you can install it with either npm or yarn:

npm install @plist/plist
# or:
yarn install @plist/plist

Usage

import { parse, serialize } from '@plist/plist';

parse(serialize({ hello: 'world' })); // => { hello: 'world' }

Compatibility

This library relies on (relatively) new JavaScript features such as BigInt.

Therefore, without polyfills, those are the minimum browser and node/deno versions @plist/plist will work in:

Environment	Version
Chrome/Chromium	67+
Edge	79+
Firefox	100+
Internet Explorer	Not supported
Opera	54+
Safari	14.1+ (iOS 14.1+, macOS 11.1+)
Deno	1.0+
node.js	16.5.0+

plist's Issues

Empty Dictionaries fail

If the file contains empty dictionaries (or empty stuff generally), like:

// !$*UTF8*$!
{
  archiveVersion = 1;
  classes = {};

The library fails with:

 throw new Error("Unexpected '".concat(char, "'"));
                ^

Error: Unexpected '}'