Data::Plist(3)

NAME
Data::Plist - object representing a property list

SYNOPSIS
 # Create a new plist containing $data
 my $plist = Data::Plist->new($data);

 # Get nested arrays containing the perl data structure's
 # information
 my $ret = $plist->raw_data;

 # Get perl data structure
 $ret = $plist->data;

 # Get an Objective C object
 $ret = $plist->object;

DESCRIPTION
Plists are intermediate structures from which nested array structures of the format specified in "SERIALIZED DATA", perl data structures and Objective C data structures can be obtained.

SERIALIZED DATA
Perl data structures that have been serialized become nested array structures containing their data and their data type. Example:

[ array => [ string => "kitten" ], [ integer => 42], [ real => 3.14159 ] ]

Array references are passed around when dealing with serialized data.

KEYED ARCHIVES
Apple uses binary property lists as a serialization format from Objective C, in a format "NSKeyedArchiver". Data::Plist has the capability to recognize property lists which were generated using "NSKeyedArchiver", and to construct perl objects based on the information in the property list. Objects thus created are blessed under the "Data::Plist::Foundation" namespace. Thus, the root ancestor of all Objective C objects thus imported is Data::Plist::Foundation::NSObject.

METHODS

  new
Creates a new Data::Plist object. Generally, you will not need to call this directly, as Plists are generally created by Data::Plist::Reader classes, and are not needed in serialization when using Data::Plist::Writer classes.

  collapse $data
Takes an array of serialized data $data. Recursively returns the actual data, without the datatype labels.

  raw_data
Returns the plist as a set of nested arrays of the format specified in "SERIALIZED DATA".

  data
Returns the plist as its corresponding perl data structure.

  is_archive
Checks if the plist is actually an archived Objective C generated by "NSKeyedArchiver". Returns true if it is. See "KEYED ARCHIVES".

  unref
Recursively strips references from the plist.

  reify $data
Takes serialized data (see "SERIALIZED DATA") $data and checks if it's a keyed archive (see "SERIALIZED DATA"). If the data is a keyed archive, it blesses it into the appropriate perl class.

  object
If the plist is an Objective C object archive created with "NSKeyedArchiver" (see "KEYED ARCHIVES"), returns the object blessed into the corresponding class under Data::Plist::Foundation::NSOjbect. Otherwise, returns undef.

DEPENDENCIES
Class::ISA, DateTime, Digest::MD5, Math::BigInt, MIME::Base64, Scalar::Util, Storable, UNIVERSAL::isa, XML::Writer

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
No XML reader is included at current.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-Data-Plist@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at <http://rt.cpan.org>.

AUTHORS
Alex Vandiver and Jacky Chang.

Based on plutil.pl, written by Pete Wilson <wilsonpm@gamewood.net>

LICENSE
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic.