5 ms·

<key>AutoJoin</key> <true/> <key>CaptiveBypass</key> <false/> <key>EncryptionType</key> <string>None</string> A whole bunch of key-value pairs at the

by Kiala 3y ago

<key>AutoJoin</key> <true/> <key>CaptiveBypass</key> <false/> <key>EncryptionType</key> <string>None</string> A whole bunch of key-value pairs at the same level? What kind of cursed XML is this?

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list
ezfe 3y ago
Standard plist format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list
- mobilio 3y ago
  Also can be edited using plutil and defaults in command line.
mock-possum 3y ago
Jeez yeah do not like this
blashyrk 3y ago
Now imagine that the workspace/project format for the defacto IDE for all Apple related stuff uses this exact same format, mixed with some random binary blobs and it keeps track of all project settings and file structure. Now imagine merging that in your VCS of choice whenever another team member makes any change to any of the aforementioned things. Good news! You don't have to imagine! You can live this fever dream yourself by using Xcode. How a company with that much money can unironically produce such dumpster fire garbage of a so-called IDE is beyond my comprehension.
- guhidalg 3y ago
  This is one of the unexpected externalities of Apple’s walled garden. You may not deal with Xcode directly if you use Xamarin et al. then some poor soul somewhere has to sacrifice their first born every year when Xcode received an update. If Apple allowed other App Stores, they would have to make Xcode not suck.
- saagarjha 3y ago
  What binary blobs? It's a text file?
- JimDabell 3y ago
  > Now imagine that the workspace/project format for the defacto IDE for all Apple related stuff uses this exact same format It doesn’t. Xcode project files are something that look a bit like a cross between JSON and an INI file. This is unofficial documentation showing what it looks like: http://www.monobjc.net/xcode-project-file-format.html http://www.monobjc.net/xcode-project-file-format.html That isn’t a property list; it’s something inherited from Project Builder from NeXTSTEP, which Xcode was originally based upon. Xcode project files would be a lot easier to deal with if they were property list files, because they are a standard, documented format with official tools to work with them. The Xcode project file format isn’t officially documented and doesn’t have generic manipulation tools like plutil. Maybe you are mixing the project file up with the Info.plist file? That is a property list file, but its purpose is to tell the operating system about the application. It’s not the Xcode project file.
  - xenadu02 3y ago
    This is the original ASCII plist file format from NeXTSTEP. Foundation still supports reading these but not writing them.
tyingq 3y ago
Here's a large example with nested arrays and dicts, integers, strings, etc: https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg/blob/master/Docs/Sample.plist https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg/blob/master/Docs/...
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  Sweet Jesus. I'm filing a human rights complaint at The Hague.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Oh it's not that bad, plus it's just an on-disk serialization format. You use it like you would Python's pickle by dumping/loading from NSDictionary/NSArray. It's ordered, typed, can be validated by schema, and just takes the format you would write naturally and removes the boilerplate because your primitive collections in plist world aren't trees they're dicts and arrays just like in JSON. <dict> <entry> <key>Greeting</key> <value type="string">Hello World</value> </entry> </dict> <dict> <key>Greeting</key> <string>Hello World</string> </dict>
  - marcellus23 3y ago
    It's not intended to be written by hand. It's also like 30 years old.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
Congratulations, you’ve found example #78332 that even the world’s best engineers can have bad ideas.
ape4 3y ago
Worse than an .ini file
aragonite 3y ago
Not entirely unfamiliar from <dt>/<dd> HTML elements. [1][2] <dt>term1</dt><dd>definition1</dd> <dt>term2</dt><dd>definition2</dd> [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/dl#metadata https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/dl... [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-author-20110809/the-dl-element.html https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-author-20110809/the-dl-e...
AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
I'm not sure how old you are but congratulations on living this long without encoutering the unmitigated hell of Apple plist files. I remember seeing when I first started using OSX 10.0 about two decades ago and my reaction was about the same as yours. At least now `plutil` can output (and read) JSON, along with lots of other enhancements to make it slightly less insane to use.
skrebbel 3y ago
I kinda like it. About as succinct you can make an ordered map with XML, given a predefined set of element names (= easy validation)

by Kiala 3y ago

<key>AutoJoin</key> <true/> <key>CaptiveBypass</key> <false/> <key>EncryptionType</key> <string>None</string> A whole bunch of key-value pairs at the same level? What kind of cursed XML is this?

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list

ezfe 3y ago

Standard plist format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list

mobilio 3y ago
Also can be edited using plutil and defaults in command line.

mock-possum 3y ago

Jeez yeah do not like this

blashyrk 3y ago

Now imagine that the workspace/project format for the defacto IDE for all Apple related stuff uses this exact same format, mixed with some random binary blobs and it keeps track of all project settings and file structure. Now imagine merging that in your VCS of choice whenever another team member makes any change to any of the aforementioned things. Good news! You don't have to imagine! You can live this fever dream yourself by using Xcode. How a company with that much money can unironically produce such dumpster fire garbage of a so-called IDE is beyond my comprehension.

guhidalg 3y ago
This is one of the unexpected externalities of Apple’s walled garden. You may not deal with Xcode directly if you use Xamarin et al. then some poor soul somewhere has to sacrifice their first born every year when Xcode received an update. If Apple allowed other App Stores, they would have to make Xcode not suck.
saagarjha 3y ago
What binary blobs? It's a text file?
JimDabell 3y ago
> Now imagine that the workspace/project format for the defacto IDE for all Apple related stuff uses this exact same format It doesn’t. Xcode project files are something that look a bit like a cross between JSON and an INI file. This is unofficial documentation showing what it looks like: http://www.monobjc.net/xcode-project-file-format.html http://www.monobjc.net/xcode-project-file-format.html That isn’t a property list; it’s something inherited from Project Builder from NeXTSTEP, which Xcode was originally based upon. Xcode project files would be a lot easier to deal with if they were property list files, because they are a standard, documented format with official tools to work with them. The Xcode project file format isn’t officially documented and doesn’t have generic manipulation tools like plutil. Maybe you are mixing the project file up with the Info.plist file? That is a property list file, but its purpose is to tell the operating system about the application. It’s not the Xcode project file.
- xenadu02 3y ago
  This is the original ASCII plist file format from NeXTSTEP. Foundation still supports reading these but not writing them.

tyingq 3y ago

Here's a large example with nested arrays and dicts, integers, strings, etc: https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg/blob/master/Docs/Sample.plist https://github.com/acidanthera/OpenCorePkg/blob/master/Docs/...

ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
Sweet Jesus. I'm filing a human rights complaint at The Hague.
- Spivak 3y ago
  Oh it's not that bad, plus it's just an on-disk serialization format. You use it like you would Python's pickle by dumping/loading from NSDictionary/NSArray. It's ordered, typed, can be validated by schema, and just takes the format you would write naturally and removes the boilerplate because your primitive collections in plist world aren't trees they're dicts and arrays just like in JSON. <dict> <entry> <key>Greeting</key> <value type="string">Hello World</value> </entry> </dict> <dict> <key>Greeting</key> <string>Hello World</string> </dict>
- marcellus23 3y ago
  It's not intended to be written by hand. It's also like 30 years old.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

Congratulations, you’ve found example #78332 that even the world’s best engineers can have bad ideas.

ape4 3y ago

Worse than an .ini file

aragonite 3y ago

Not entirely unfamiliar from <dt>/<dd> HTML elements. [1][2] <dt>term1</dt><dd>definition1</dd> <dt>term2</dt><dd>definition2</dd> [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/dl#metadata https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/dl... [2] https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-author-20110809/the-dl-element.html https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-author-20110809/the-dl-e...

AdamJacobMuller 3y ago

I'm not sure how old you are but congratulations on living this long without encoutering the unmitigated hell of Apple plist files. I remember seeing when I first started using OSX 10.0 about two decades ago and my reaction was about the same as yours. At least now `plutil` can output (and read) JSON, along with lots of other enhancements to make it slightly less insane to use.

skrebbel 3y ago

I kinda like it. About as succinct you can make an ordered map with XML, given a predefined set of element names (= easy validation)